


Shingetsu No Kaihatsu - 親月の開発 (New Moon Evolution)

by Benten



Series: A Genius' Journey [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Band Fic, Falling In Love, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Freeform, High School, Japan, Japan National Volleyball Team, Love Confessions, Multi, Music, Musical References, Post-Canon, Sports, Volleyball
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-01-26 17:45:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 45,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12562784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Benten/pseuds/Benten
Summary: Evolution means change. To make it for the better is everyone's task to complete.Welcome in my Haikyuu world set after Okurimono!Enjoy Lord Kageyama's final Year as a student in Karasuno, and take a ride with me to discover how his bonds with the (now) third years will develop.Angst & Fluff courtesy of hormonal inbalance typical of teenagers.Lots of volley and Japanese related notions as usual.Summaries here will still be music related, because... it fits a lot of the new chapters too :)Enjoy and as usual... feel free to correct my English as much as you like, because I know I need it :) and I'd be thankful for it :)





	1. Antifact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I dig my toes into the sand  
> The Ocean looks like a thousand diamonds  
> Strewn across a blue blanket  
> I lean against the wind  
> Pretend that I am weightless  
> And in this moment I am happy…  
> Happy…”
> 
> (Incubus - Wish You Were Here)

“Ehi, King…”

Tsukishima patted the shoulder of his classmate with vigor. The setter, deeply versed into a picture of Okinawa Okuma Beach from a Vacation Catalogue which was hidden by his chemistry book jolted.  
With swiftness Kageyama turned head to glare menacingly at the taller guy, whose mouth immediately twisted into an evil grin.

“If I were you I’d drop it. Fujita sensei won't allow you even this, while in class…” he whispered, knowing Kageyama would have frowned at the mention of their teacher’s evident predilection for him. “… or maybe will he?”

Starting to turning red, Kageyama closed the catalogue and put it under his desk. Then he wrote with a marker something on his own large palm and turned it back so to allow Tsukishima to read it.  
The other snorted the lightest he could.

“Guys, for today this is all. Remember to gather at the planned time by the main gymnasium to attend Graduation Ceremony tomorrow.  
It will also be the day when the school is going to honor your two classmates, Kageyama kun and Tsukishima kun for their remarkable achievements in sports during the year. And… Kageyama kun…”

Fujita’s eyes darted from behind his thick glasses, his voice going softer, like it always happened when he was ready to scold someone; Kageyama stiffened and Tsukishima behind him almost snorted again:

“… please refrain from reading Volleyball Magazines while in class…I can see you very well, even from here…”

Kageyama's face went bright purple, and his ears gained a majestic shade of carnation red.

“It… wasn't… a volleyball magazine…”

Everyone turned to him, if they hadn't already. What else could Kageyama read after all?

“Oh. That’d be a first. And, given that whatever it was, that also is forbidden to be read in class, may I ask you what is which you were so enraptured to read since the last period?”

“I am deeply sorry, sensei,” said the boy while standing up to bow at his teacher and at the whole class, as a sign of remorse “I got this from my family to choose a place which I could like to spend holidays at…” and he took out of his desk under shelf the Catalogue “it is for congratulating me for this academic year, and we have to choose before tomorrow comes… it's just that I always forgot to pick a place up because… well… I have to train and…”

The homeroom teacher of Class Sixth in which Kageyama had managed to get admitted shook his head, not for he was confused, but rather for amusement in observing how the guy in front of him could consider what he was recalling logical and necessary, which he certainly was, and moved towards him, at the bottom part of the class, right beside the most spacious window the room had:

“And nothing can come between you and volley, correct me if I am wrong... Not even risking to be grounded here in punishment, right?”

Kageyama's eyes widened. He couldn't be grounded. They had to train for the last time with Ennoshita senpai, Tanaka, Noyassan and Narita and Kinoshita and he would have killed a kid if anybody had tried to stop him from doing it.

“Fujita sensei…”

Tsukishima tried to intervene in favor of his setter:

“I am sure that Kageyama kun would be able to repeat this chemistry lesson right now though…”

Fujita’s eyes switched to the guy sitting behind the culprit.

“Oh. Do you think so, Tsukishima kun?”

_I do. I have learnt to never underestimate the power of this volleyball nerd’s brain when it's about to make him able to do what he wants most, sensei…_

“I guess so.”

_And then we have studied this part on our own two weeks ago before intensive training camp…_

“It seems that your teammate has a strong faith in you, Kageyama kun. So, if you can solve this…” and Fujita proceeded to move to the chalkboard to write a reaction formula to be developed down “I will be happy to revoke your punishment…”

Kageyama, who was still standing from earlier on, clenched his fists, took a deep but silent breath, glanced coldly at Kei and then reached the chalkboard himself, constantly observed by his teacher.  
He closed his eyes, and tried to visualize the chemical reaction in front of him.  
Then, after dozens of options he had studied and memorized had presented themselves to his brain, he reopened his eyes focusing on the dark surface of the chalkboard and as fast as a piano player he developed the reaction chains without blinking.

“I see your teammates know you better, Kageyama kun.”

Fujita observed with a thin but otherwise triumphant smile.

“Say thanx to Tsukishima kun, his idea might just have saved your afternoon.”

Kageyama bowed at his teacher, and took back his place at his desk. Then once again he put on his back the palm he had written previously onto, so that Tsukishima could read it again.

_FUCK YOU, KEI…_

Tsukishima smiled.

No one else was allowed to call his name, and no one else generally ever dared.  
But Kings aren't used to commoners’ restrictions, and there were little things he actually liked more than realizing that Kageyama was used to call just him by first name.

Though he probably never even once had realized it himself, and though he had not the faintest idea how unpolite it was to never add honorifics there.

“Kei…”

They were moving towards Hinata, Yamaguchi and Yachi’s class, to go all together at their gym, and Kageyama finally had decided it would have been fair to speak to him.  
He had such a cute, conflicted face Tsukishima's stomach flipped a bit.

“Mmh?”

“I owe you one…”

“You owe me way more than one, actually…”

Kageyama vehemently denied, though it was true.

“Whatever. Anyway, thank you. You really saved my ass today. If there's anything I can do to…”

“Pay your debt? You know what I would like you to do…”

As they were approaching Class Fourth, Kageyama stopped in his pace. His frown deepened.

“Not in a million years. I told you already. There is no way. Ever.”

Tsukishima tilted his head in complacency.

“Then you're forever in debt with me, Your Majesty. Live with it.”

“There must be something else I can do for you?”

“There is not. Sorry…”

Kageyama was starting to steam from his ears. Tsukishima was rather amused by the whole scene.

“We don't have time for that, I told you already. We have the final exams this year… and this is the year when we are the BIG favorites at Nationals, now that Sakusa San and Komori San aren’t in high school anymore…”

“Yeah… and?”

“And maybe you are not understanding it but our time this year will be even less than before to do it all well… we don't have time, absolutely we don't to play as a band!”

Tsukishima readjusted his glasses on his nose.

“Well, you are the only one thinking so. Hinata and Yamaguchi as well as Yachi San agree with me that we could easily put up a little practice in time for the Cultural festival instead. We’re in March. the festival is in November. We have all the time in the world.”

Tsukishima lifted his long arm in a slow and calculated gesture, pointing mischievously at Kageyama:

“Just admit that you are too timid to play in front of the whole school and I’ll be satisfied.”

Kageyama dropped his head heavily. His long bangs moving as he was standing near to an open window, while the first cherry blossoms were waving outside.

“Timid? No way.”

“Then just try it. You may even suck for all we know… and in that case good riddance, I’d be the one giving up at the whole idea. But it's not a thing of you to give up before even trying, is it, King?”

Kageyama hated to be pushed in matters of pride. He knew he could easily be played that way. But still refused to back down at anything.

“Only if this won't ever cross paths with and risk to damage volley…”

“But of course. Do you think any of us would do it any other way? This year is our chance as you said. This year…”

And Kageyama lifted his head to look straight into Tsukishima's eyes and the older one felt like he was a prey in front of a starving black panther ready to jump at him:

“This year is the year Karasuno High School will make history for real.”

“Yes. So while we're at it, Your Majesty… why can't we dance on our own song as we do make history? It will be a stress reliever too. I am sure it can work out well. And after all, sensei was right… don't we know better about you?”

Kageyama had to admit it.  
It was a good feeling, the one of being understood, trusted, and taken care of even beyond his own expressed needs.  
It was still something he always marveled at, even after so many months.

“Let's see what comes. I can't promise I won't get sick of it. Or bored.”

“Fair game… I can't promise you won't suck, after all…”

And they finally reached out to their teammates who had enthusiastically agreed already at Tsukishima's idea to create a little band out of them in their final year as high students at Karasuno.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Okuma Beach in Okinawa** is one of the most famous and renewed holiday spots in Japan, full of top class resorts and blessed by a wonderfully coloured Ocean sea.
> 
>  **Homeroom Teacher** The homeroom teacher in Japan or classroom adviser is in charge of a class made up of 40 children or less. The homeroom teacher may also have an assistant. There is different teacher per subject. Each school has its own subject matter coverage, classroom activities at the start of the day and at the end of the day (homeroom) and various school events. 
> 
> **Cultural festivals (文化祭 bunkasai)** in Japan are annual open day events held by most schools, from nursery schools to universities at which their students display their artistic achievements. They are generally held at the start of November, around November 3 which is National Cultural Day Holiday. People who want to enter the school themselves or who are interested in the school may come to see what the schoolwork and atmosphere are like. Parents may also want to see what kind of work their children have been doing. The festivals are usually open to the public, especially at high schools and universities.


	2. Roles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Precious and fragile things  
> need special handling..."
> 
> (" **Precious** ", _Depeche Mode_ )

The week after graduation was gloomy and windy.  
Sakura blossoms were at risk of being trashed before being strong enough to survive by what was looking more and more as a bitchy storm rather than a March showering and looking up in the sky Yamaguchi expressed his concern about the first meeting with the newbies having to be in a day as unfortunate as that.

“And why exactly shall that be a problem? We will be in a gym. You know… roof and walls being there to protect us and this is rain after all, not a tornado or anything…”

Yamaguchi looked at his best friend with all knowing eyes. He could sense his nervousness about the role he was about to impersonate from then onwards, and he had hoped for his sake that weather would have been nice and luminous and a definite mood booster for everyone that day.  
Instead…

“Ehi Tsukki… Do you remember it?”

“What?”

“The speech Sawamura senpai gave us when we first joined…” **NOTE**

Tsukishima stopped his steps; just a fraction of an instant, which Yamaguchi didn't overlook, adjusting his own walk to his.

“I do. Every single word.”

The two started walking back at their original pace.

“Why are you asking?”

Yamaguchi patted his lifelong mate on the back, and with a sweet and caring smile he said that he was sure all of the new guys Karasuno Volleyball Club would find in the gym that day would similarly remember his speech in two years’ time, and that they would be inspired by him the same way all of them had been by their senpai two years before.

“I am sure that you think we were wrong in choosing you, still. But the only one who's generally wrong bout himself in these matters is exactly you, Tsukki.”

Tsukishima wanted to retort, but Yamaguchi was one hundred percent spot on in what he was saying, and he just shrugged while claiming he would have tried his best to not let anybody down.

“Your best will be more than enough to make you the wonderful Captain who is going to be remembered as the conductor who gave Karasuno its best volleyball year ever.”

The two were at the front door of the gym, ready to open it, when a voice behind them shouted, full of vitality and decibels.

“Whoooo! Aren't you pumped guys? We are about to meet a whole new crop of teammates… how many have signed our papers? Ten? Twenty? We are a powerhouse after all…”

Tsukishima put his hand over Hinata's face just like he were in hope to switch him off that way; naturally the shorter guy kept talking even with a whole open hand on his mouth. Tsukishima retracted it grossed out by Hinata's output of saliva.

“Serves you right, Tsukishima… it's not nice to try to shut me down that way.”

“Ewww… the point is that no matter what, there’s no way to shut you down at all…”

“So… how many?”

“How many what?”

“What are you, deaf? I said it before… how many applicants do we expect today?”

“Twelve.”

The three guys who were still at the entrance of the gym, one foot each into the building, turned heads towards Kageyama, who was coming along Yachi and a very pretty girl by her side, carrying a bunch of folders with the Karasuno Volleyball Club mark printed on them.

“King… I was wondering where the heck you were hiding…”

Stepping first into the gym, bypassing them all, Kageyama explained he had to help Yachi convincing Etsuko Kawasaki to apply for the position of manager in training.

“She’s here, so my lateness was a successful move don't you think?”

Said Etsuko was looking like the only thing she cared for in being among them was the fact she could keep looking at Kageyama.  
A scene which was pretty common in the school since a while.  
Hinata jerked his setter's arm and whispered something in his ear, after which he received a silent nodding by him, and then he shouted:

“ _That_ Kawasaki family????”

Etsuko lowered her head, blushing. Hitoka by her side caressed her shoulder in sign of having her back. 

“I told you to stop make a fuss out of silly things… yes, she comes from _that Kawasaki family_ and so? She is just a regular girl who wants to support us by being of an help. Am I right, Etsuko San?”

The girl lowered once again her head, and her long brunette hair covered all of her face, but not enough to completely hide the fact she had become completely red. Even her hands and arms seemed to have changed color.

“Y… Yes. Ka… Kageyama sen… senpai.”

Tsukishima decided then to start handling things like a Captain should.

“Kawasaki San, forgive us for causing you distress and embarrassment. We are gladly welcoming you in our staff, if you please to be part of the team. We have longed for finding a person to pair with Yachi San, and we would be delighted if by the end of your trial time, you will find yourself happy in filling the position up.”

Etsuko looked at Tsukishima with eyes full of gratefulness and admiration. He was a tall, beautiful guy and he was capable of speaking so well and properly. She knew a lot about him because during her first year she had collected any possible information about Kageyama and she had learned all about the Volley team, in hope to have subjects to speak with him, one fine day.  
Her multiple attempts had all failed, but for a kind turning of Fate, she had word by a classmate the senpai she had in class Four was desperately looking for an help in her managing duties for the Volleyball Club, and after having asked to her classmates who were in the team, Kyouya and Ryoma, about possibly joining, she had found Kageyama in flesh and bones by her classroom door, all eager to accompany her at the team presentation that day.  
It had been a miracle she had not passed out on the spot then.

“I… I… hope I can be of an… help. For you. All…For the whole team, I mean.”

While Yamaguchi and Hitoka were explaining to Kawasaki all she would have done that day and for the ten subsequent days as a trial for the Manager position, Tsukishima and Hinata joined Kageyama, who was starting to place the ball baskets at the four corners of the court.

“What are you doing, Kageyama?”

“Ukai San asked for this.”

“Why? Are we going to train? Isn't just an admission day?”

“Kei, explain to this naive dumbass what we are gonna do please… I don't have time nor force to do it myself after all the mess Etsuko has forced me endure today…”

_Mess? Now having to deal with a cutie madly in love with your ass is a mess? You truly are hopeless, King…_

“It can't be a pure admission day, Hinata. Twelve recruits are too many for us. We will accept only eight of them, so we have to test their skills as players.”

Hinata expressed clearly his opposition to the plan. For somebody like him, who never had enough players to play with in middle school, and who had kept following nevertheless his volley passion no matter what, it sounded offensive to be the one who could have truncated somebody else's dreams at being part of the newly renamed Karasuno Team. It sounded and felt cruel. He absolutely had no will to be part of the selective committee.

“Which you won't anyway, dumbass. We are here to play so that Ukai San can choose, obviously. And stop being a pain in the ass. Twelve people are of no use. We don't even have a bus big enough to carry eight more actually…”

Tsukishima smirked, ready to sting some out:

“Oh, but thanx to our King’s charm, no worries about that, Hinata: soon our new manager will provide some extraordinary new vehicle… right King?”

Kageyama glared.

“Listen, it could have been the chick in our class who would clean after your steps for all I cared. She was ready to join us since last year, and she comes from a family in the truck business so it would have been even better, and she was in your and Yamaguchi's class last year but I learnt that you never even tried to make her join the club so please, stop being all High and Dry and cut this fancy shit off. I presented Etsuko because she wanted to join the club and if by her choice it happens that we can get some new bus, even better. I won't certainly ask for it. But bet your ass that I won't ever refuse the chance if she says she wants to provide us a new one.”

Kageyama has said all with a freezingly cold voice, a calm rhythm and virtually no movements while speaking. Both Tsukishima and Hinata knew there was only one thing to do when he was speaking that way and that would be leave the matter behind and never speak of it ever again, for everyone's sake. Both knew Kageyama didn't mean any harm to Etsuko, or to anyone else. It just happened to be that whenever occasions would rise for him to obtain something he felt could augment his volleyball satisfaction, he would run over puppies for it.  
Meaning no harm.  
But without second guesses, either.  
The difference between him and a revolting schemer would be that if questioned about his moves, he would have openly admitted and explained everything to everyone, included (and especially) the person whom he would technically use for reaching his goal.  
In Kageyama's mind and heart, as usual, volleyball reigned supreme and unchallenged, and there was no shame or blame admitting it.

“The new guys are coming… and there are Ukai and Takeda sensei. Let's gather…”

Tsukishima lined everyone up fronting the hopefuls who wanted to join the powerhouse team who had twice become the National Runner Up in the previous seasons. The fame of the players who had made it possible, and the fame of their coach had spread across the Province and the Country, and it was no surprise the Club had been subjected with lots of joining requests.  
After the presentations, Ukai made all the tentative players show their abilities.  
In two hours, and not easily, four of the applicants were rejected, but with honorable mentions and the promise they could have tried the following year to be accepted again, if they had wanted to, despite in Japanese school system it was a rarity for students to change clubs after their first year admission into one.  
After the jerseys and the customized bags had been given to the new players, Ukai and Takeda had explained briefly the plans for the incoming season, keeping old and new players standing and facing them solemnly.  
Almost at the end of their talks, the bomb:

“Hinata… regarding your position…”

“Yes coach?”

Ukai looked at Takeda then at Kageyama, then at Tsukishima, who sighed.

“I am thinking about shifting you in the Wing Spiker's spot.”

Hinata didn't look too pleased, but avoided wording his negative surprise, which was anyway easy to read from his concerned face, and let the briefing continue.  
The coach kept explaining further his improved scheming for the season, but Hinata had stopped to listen, his face progressively going blank as his eyes, and his body postured quite lifeless.  
Kageyama knew him all too perfectly to mistake his signals.  
Hinata was angry.  
Hinata was unconvinced.  
And Hinata was worryingly silent.  
After the ranks had been broken, and all the new guys had visited the locker rooms, only the four third years had remained to set everything back tidy there.  
Hinata was still alarmingly shut.

“We have to talk about this, Hinata…”

“No, we don't. The coach has decided. I am totally not agreeing, but there it is, my new reality of not being a middle blocker anymore.”

Kageyama put himself in front of his teammate, who was trying to pack and swiftly leave.

“It's not only his idea… so we have to talk.”

Hinata's eyes became pure fire.

“And whose else's idea is then?”

Kageyama looked at Tsukishima, who sighed again, then explained he and Tsukishima had talked abundantly about the switch with Ukai.

“And why shall you, the vice captain, talk about it? Shouldn't be… him doing it instead?”

Said Hinata pointing a finger in Tsukishima's direction.

“I happen to agree with what he’s saying tho…”

Hinata hissed. He hated how the teamwork of the two taller guys could invariably leave him weapon less. When Kageyama and Tsukishima agreed, they were a tetragonal force, a fortress no one could conquer. He hated when their union had to mean his defeat.

“Be reasonable. It’s for the team’s benefit. You can’t deny Tojo kun is right now our best option at middle blocking along Kei. And you have really gone better at receiving. If you would permanently switch at the wing spiker’s spot you could take all of Daichi senpai’s former duties, and we could feel safer than we are now.”

“You two are trying to demote me…”

Hinata's face was a funeral pyre bursting. His neck veins popping.

“How? Isn't the wing spiker's the ace position you’ve always dreamed of?”

Yamaguchi tried to give his two cents, mostly to make everyone cool off.

“You aren't suggesting this out of consideration of my ace skills though, am I right Kageyama…”

“I am suggesting this because this is the best setup our team gets to have. Akabane Shinichi kun gets to train with Nishinoya senpai, that's great, but so far his libero experience is limited. We need someone reliable covering and tutoring him backside…”

“And that's me?”

“Yup.”

“Me, the one you’ve constantly reproached for defensive plays up until yesterday?”

“Yup.”

“Kageyama kun… wanna fight?”

Hinata's wasn't foolishly offering him one. He had a very serious face then.

“Nope. I wanna win. And this solution ain't a patch up. Ukai San agrees. This switch of yours can be the secret weapon of Karasuno for this season.”

_And additionally this might be your greatest chance at National Team targeting. You have to become as much as an all rounder as Hoshiumi San to be considered there… just agree and live with it, dumbass Hinata…_

“Think like this, Hinata: given you still barely growing, the only way you have to keep being pivotal in whatever team is to become great at any role which may be of use…”

“Tsukishima!”

“Tsukki…”

_Let it be, Kei… why can't you ever avoid to sting him in? Damn… now Hinata will oppose all this, just because you tried to convince him with the harshest push…_

“… am I right here, your Highness?”

Kageyama managed to answer with an impassioned face.

“Well… yes. You are. But it's also the best option for our team I think. It's like this regardless of your height. I truly think you can shine this way.”

Hinata was still debating inside himself if he were to be the team joker or the team shooting star.

“Hinata… look at me. Do you think I would ever try to damage or demote the only person who's never let me down in volley?”

At that, Tsukishima thought if he had ever let his King down. At the start of Karasuno's days, he certainly had. He hated the fact Hinata had a higher rank than him in Kageyama's eyes just because he never had to adjust to his ways, but had always trusted him blindly and completely. Advantage Sun, once again.  
Annoyingly so.

“No. I know you would never do that. But I still think this idea sucks.”

Hinata's facials started to soften, but his eyes kept darting flames out.

“It has not to be permanent if you don't feel it right. But let's at least try. Won't you try and see how it goes?”

Hinata felt safe in Kageyama's eyes. His eyes were sparkling.  
There was no way to not believe those eyes sparkling like that, he knew it.

“AAaarghhh! Whatever. Let's try. I promise to give my all to make this stupid idea work. But you and Tsukishima are two jerks for having conjured all this behind my back during your stupid morning runs…”

Kageyama looked at Tsukishima, who understood the question he was posing even before his mouth would open:

“Don't look my way, King. I haven't told him a thing…”

“Then…was that you, Yamaguchi?”

Tadashi shook his head, amused. Kageyama went back to Hinata, who was looking rather proud of himself.

“Nobody told me. It's that I know you by now. I know you very, very well. You would not speak in class of things like these. You haven't during games or practices, because I observe you always very carefully… so there was no other way for you and Tsukishima to come up with this if not during runs.”

Kageyama marveled.  
It was still feeling incredible to him how somebody could be so perceptive about his ways.  
Indeed, he was known by then.  
And it wasn't that bad.

“Guys, lock up here yourselves…Yama and I are going to go now. I am already late and my brother needs my help. See you tomorrow!”

Kageyama and Hinata nodded and cheered, while Yamaguchi and Tsukishima moved onto their homes.  
Once Kai had arrived, his mother sent him upstairs where Akiteru was busy moving boxes and emptying cupboards.  
Kei asked what he could have done to help, and got instructed carefully.  
After more or less an hour, the two took a break from their duties and relaxed a bit, favoring a cold juice in their hands.

“Ehi big bro… are you excited?”

Akiteru nodded.

“I still think it's all in my head and a dream I had which I haven't been able to wake up from…”

“But it's true… you are gonna get married. And somehow Tanaka senpai will become family. I don't really know if I can forgive you for this…”

“Is it… true?”

Kei looked at his brother. Sometimes he had to have the worst opinion of him.

“Of course not. I am just kidding, obviously. Tanaka senpai… he's really cool. Loud. But cool.”

Akiteru sighed in relief. 

“I am glad you think so. How are you instead? I saw you took all of the old music equipment from the garage. I suppose you guys will try to put up a band then?”

“You make it sound very easy… we are just giving it a try. To be honest none of us has ever played so it can easily be a huge train wreck.”

“But a funny one?”

Tsukishima took off his glasses to shuffle on them and cleaning them. Putting them back, he said he hoped it would be exactly the case.

“Is he gonna be part of the band thing, too?”

Tsukishima sat on his brother's bed.

“Looks like he will.”

“Guitarist?”

“Drummer.”

Akiteru sat beside Kei.

“Wasn't drumming your thing?” **NOTE 1**

Kei smirked. He knew where his brother was heading.

“He said his fingers couldn't be damaged by chords. Drummer was the only option to have him in. And surprise… he isn't even half bad. He has a natural sense of timing obviously, and a very good ear. He tends to go on by himself a bit too much, but when he concentrates, he is pretty decent…”

“I assume you will avoid carefully to tell all this to his face.”

Kei laughed lightly.

“Of course. He will never hear anything but complaints from me. Musically speaking, _I am the King_ and be assured I will make it count.”

Akiteru looked at his little brother's face.  
He was gloating.  
He looked ecstatic in his somber way to have the chance to unite his passion for music with his passion in his heart. He probably would have never admitted it, despite the fact he knew everything about his love for Kageyama. He was still in denial half of the times about it. But every little signal his love was far from gone was there.  
The way he would suddenly stop wearing his bitchy face when far away from his teammates, lost in the sight of his setter changing clothes at the side of the bench, during the games he and Saeko kept checking regularly; the way he had bought three different running pair of shoes, just to match his vice captain habits of run; the way he had started from a couple of months doing weights religiously every day, or the unmistakable agitation he was subjected to whenever Kageyama would come at their house for a study session, often unannounced if not by a gap of minutes.

“Do it then. Make it count so that you won't ever have any regret of your youthful times.”

Kei looked at Akiteru who was ready to finish packing a bit of his stuff to move them in his incoming house with Saeko.

“By the way, Kei… what instruments do you play in the band then?”

“His Majesty has chosen keyboards for me. He said I also shouldn't damage my fingers more than I already have to during games.”

Akiteru laughed internally. Not very kingly of his brother to give in so quickly at another order.

“I see. But what about Hinata?”

“He’s the lead guitarist. There was no way to let him accepting to play bass. And it seems his fingers are thick enough to have barely scratches, despite his fair complexion. It's not like he has to play like Jimi Hendrix after all so…”

“Is he good?”

“Not particularly but Tadashi is quite good with bass instead so they follow one another pretty easily and the effect seems pleasant enough.”

“At this point I assume Hitoka is the singer.”

“She is. She has a very cute voice and once she will stop being that shy, she may be a really good front woman. She'll get our good help at that. I am not worried. Plus, we do covers and her English is excellent so that's a point in favor by default.”

“Well, you guys should play at the post party reception?”

Tsukishima tensed.

“We can't. We won't have time to practice, barely a couple of weeks before it, and…”

His eyes had shades of sadness in them. Akiteru regretted his words.

“…King won't come at the party. He will be in Tokyo visiting his future campus after the National Camp he’s having the four days before the ceremony, so he won't be able to attend…”

“I see. I am sorry, Kei.”

“Sorry about what?”

Akiteru knew he had to word his concern the best he could to avoid a deeper wound on his brother's heart.

“About whatever is making your face so sad. No… don't speak. It's not necessary. But like I always say… sometimes to give up is the easiest way, but the most painful condemn, too. Whatever it is that you are feeling… there must be a way to make it matter. Don't ever dismiss anything about yourself. Ever.”

Kei nodded. Then moved out to his own room.

“Ehi big bro…”

“What?”

“Saeko San is a very lucky person in marrying someone like you.”

And without waiting, Kei went into his room not to reappear out of it until the morning after.  
To make all which he was feeling matter he took the most part of the night to himself.  
Onto his desk, a lot of paper scratches.  
Into his heart, a lot of unspoken words.  
Into his mind, quite surprisingly, a clear path.  
And hopes.  
Little, strong, unwavering hopes, suggesting myriads of tiny beats to be heard somehow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **NOTE** Real occurrence in anime/manga
> 
>  **Akabane Shinichi** Another one of my creations for the ever growing panorama of Karasuno volley team players after Okurimono's Kyouya and Ryoma. For the new libero recruit, I homage my adored **_Akabane Karma_** from Assassination Classroom (still one of my fav characters ever, and the only manga /anime which has made me cry profusely) and **_Shinichi Kudo_** of Detective Conan fame. I hope to be able to draw this merging soon :). **Etsuko Kawasaki** is a character with no imagine given from others, so no notes about her beside the fact she belongs to the Kawasaki household.
> 
>  **NOTE 1** Karasuno first years are **officially depicted as a playing band** while on cleaning duties in Haikyuu Official Artwork for a commemorative cd (reference: http://st.cdjapan.co.jp/pictures/l/06/31/THCA-60122.jpg?v=1 ). So it was way too easy to use it as material now that my story makes them third years. Though I had to forcedly switch supposed instruments because no setter could ever damage his fingers by playing chords, wounding them, and even less somebody as pristine as Kageyama regarding his hands could (that is Canon Furudate by default). Hence the motives behind the instrumental choice in my novel. Being Kei a composer and by far the most versed in music of them all, I thought keyboards were the natural pick for him, too.


	3. Encounters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Watching through my fingers...  
> Watching through my fingers...  
> In my thoughts you’re far away  
> And you are whistling a melody,  
> Whistling a melody...  
> Crystallizing clear as day  
> Oh I can picture you so easily  
> Picture you so easily
> 
> What’s gonna be left of the world if you’re not in it?  
> What’s gonna be left of the world?  
> Oh...
> 
>  
> 
> **"Good Grief" - Bastille**

The direction office was located in the backside of the training complex area. An almost hidden passage among two small gardens was carefully kept lively by a sole gardener with daisies and tulips of various shades and shapes, so that the stony bricks designing the walking path heading to the offices block could be seen as a surprise appearing under all their exuberant colors, being the tiles of stone as dark as only black slate could.  
After the practice and the individual training time, Sakusa Kyoomi had caught Kageyama swiftly take the way into the backside gardens, silent like a thief, breezy and light footed as old ninjas must have been.  
His curiosity to discover what could have pushed the setter there had prevailed over his natural reluctance at considering other people's actions, and he had followed him from a distance, confounded in seeing him knock the door of the main office without hesitation, and getting into the room as soon as the door had opened before him, invited by their coach with a cunning smile he couldn't see the purpose of.  
The Japan National Team coach wasn't the type to pass for an intrigant, despite being a fine tactician when doing his job, Sakusa thought.  
He was a straightforward but cheerful type, and even if he had strong demands towards each one of his players, his aura was positive and gentle, far from Machiavellian indulgences.  
Cunning smiles truly didn't look like his thing at all.

All taken up in his thoughts about the coach, Sakusa realized time had flown, and ultimately he decided to wait for Kageyama's exit, just because at that point it would have been useless to head back to their field house bath complex alone.  
The showers would have been full by that time already, he had said to himself, and that would mean he would have washed himself lastly, if he could not do it firstly.  
He would have asked Kageyama, who hadn't showered yet either, to clean everything before he would accept to use any of the platforms their fellow National recruits had.  
Kageyama would have not found anything strange in his request, after all.  
When the door he had kept looking at finally reopened, he met the surprised stare of his kouhai, looking at him like he were an obake shapeshifting to wish him good evening.  
Their glancing exchange told the both of them things were fine though, so they moved together away from the offices.  
None of them said anything for a while: it was common between the two to communicate without needing to word sentences out.  
They began walking down the dark brick road back into the National Gymnasium provisionary spaces, and still without saying a word to one another, they took their bags from their personalized lockers beside the main court corridor A and moved towards the baths right down corridor C.

“Sakusa San, would you mind if I take my shower before you, so that I can clean it all for you after I am done?”

Kageyama never had questioned Sakusa's peculiar and obsessive cleaning habits. He had just observed his preferences, and taken them as facts he was in no position to judge, he had quickly harmonized with them. Sakusa had always appreciated the natural approach the setter had towards his phobias and since he had realized he could feel at ease with him he had allowed himself to share showers platforms with the younger guy every now and again.

Komori Motoya was still shocked by the fact, even after months and months had passed since the first time Sakusa had done that.

“If you can clean a pair of them… we can shower at the same time…”

Unfazed by the request, Kageyama had quickly accommodated to Sakusa's wish, leaving the two of them a bit later with hairdryers in their hands to manage their ravenous mane, after the showers had concluded.

‘Kageyama kun…”

“Sakusa San?”

“What were you talking about with the coach earlier?”

Kageyama understood the spiker was referring to his visit at the direction office.

“I had a request I hoped he could have taken care of…”

Sakusa put the hairdryer on the shelf under the mirror he was facing. Calmly, he put his left hand into his rebellious curls, and as the Ocean waves, roaring in a sea storm, would quiet and lower at Poseidon’s trident imposition, his seemingly unruly hair styled themselves perfectly, just by that hand motion into them.

“Is it far from truth if I dare to suppose you asked for your short teammate to be considered for the next sparring match we’re going to play in 40 days?”

“No. That is correct. I did ask exactly for it.”

Kageyama, who had barely used the hairdryer himself, shook his head energetically, and his own incredibly shiny and silky hair danced around his face, gently framing his impassive expression.

“Do you think it's a good idea?”

Kageyama took notice of the question, but he took also a pause before answering his senpai. He knew Sakusa's opinion on the matter. Sakusa truly hadn't any sympathy for Hinata, despite having come to appreciate his stamina, determination and fighting power over the course of their final matches during High School National Tournaments.  
But suddenly an idea blew his mind up and Kageyama looked at his spiker partner with an intense stare, questioning him with subdued voice:

“Sakusa San… you have always been loved by your teammates haven't you?”

Sakusa looked at Kageyama a bit thrown off by that come back.

“Well, certainly. Why are you asking this now?”

While smiling thinly and politely, Kageyama answered:

“See… I haven't. For a longtime, no one really liked me. Not that I cared, and by then I wasn't able to understand how I was disliked to the point of rejection, either. Shortly after the mutiny of my middle school team… I met Hinata. And even though we pass even now 90 percent of our time together fighting… he’s the first and originally only teammate I have had who has instantly loved me as his setter. Recklessly and completely. And I have yet to thank him properly for that. I have yet to give back to him the same amount of blind and flattering trust he has always had in me from the start.”

While speaking of Hinata, Kageyama had a face of contentment which Sakusa couldn't stand. There was a light on his usually composed and cold face which was almost unbearable for the spiker. Sakusa couldn't believe he was feeling jealous for a light Kageyama's face was showing up in that moment.  
But he was.  
He was jealous.  
Copiously so.

“And are you selling us all in this great gift to your best friend?”

Kageyama didn't miss the sour tone of his teammate’s voice.

“No. That's why is only up to the coach to decide if Hinata deserves to be among the players we’ll play against next time. I only gave him my opinion, which had been a request of his for the record, but I wouldn't ever pressure a move about this. It’s only that it might be one of my last chances at doing this kind of match along Hinata while we still playing in the same High School team…”

“And you feel you need to play all your cards to open this chance up for him… both when you play in Karasuno and when you get to meet us all here instead, don't you?”

“I am the type who always tries his best. So… until there’s time, there is still hope, and yes… I will keep trying my best for allowing Hinata to be playing with if not within the National Team ranks.”

Sakusa tried to look deeper into Kageyama's face.  
There was still a kind of no passionate demeanor to his explanation. He was certainly caring about Hinata, but Sakusa could understand he was just attempting to be fair in repaying the shorter boy for something which apparently had meant a lot for the setter in his past.  
Sakusa's jealousy faded out, as soon as he realized there was nothing to be jealous of.  
Hinata could well be the best past Kageyama had, and he found tender from his part to be so dedicated in trying to create better opportunities for the short red head.  
It fitted Kageyama's ethic to be so worked up by that, without looking exasperated for it.  
There was nothing to be jealous of.  
No one to be jealous of.  
Because if Hinata would forever be a beautiful past for the setter, he was going to be his future, and that was not debatable.

“You are… strange when you're so affectionate.”

“But I am not? I only think it's fair for him to experience this. And although you keep denying him a chance, I am sure you must have registered how better he's gotten at being an all around player.”

Sakusa wouldn't admit it. But since he wasn't denying it, either, Kageyama had for certain Itachiyama ace had registered all Hinata's steps forward in his mind, and that was satisfying enough to him.  
He was similar to the spiker in his praise holding anyway, so he thought he was in no better position to stigmatize Sakusa for his lack of vocal appreciation towards his usual partner.  
Sakusa Kyoomi would take note of everything important for dominating games and crush mercilessly all opponents, and it hadn't escaped his scanner-like observational skills the pivotal importance Hinata had in Karasuno. That was enough of a certificate for Kageyama regarding the loud boy’s progresses. He didn't need to have Sakusa admitting a thing to be proud of his growth.

“If he has, it certainly has to do with you…”

“I would say it has to do with _you_ as much, Sakusa San…”

The spiker was putting his ever present mask up his mouth, but the growl of displeasure at Kageyama's words escaped before his lips would be covered.

“I am not lying. Hinata takes all beatings like pushes to get better, and you have been his… well, _ours to be truthful,_ worst nightmare. But there is nothing disheartening him. When we first met and I whooped him… he just came back telling… better… _shouting_ at me that he would have won eventually against me… he was the most annoying person I had ever met!”

Kageyama was sporting again that strange light up face he had before. Sakusa felt something stingy coming back in his chest. The two were leaving the baths fully dressed in their customized National gym suits for the evening meal with Japan Volleyball Team but before they were exiting the building to reach their teammates Sakusa put his mask down and looking directly at the setter’s face he said:

“You know, when I met you first at the Youth Training Camp… you really stood out as an annoying one too…” **NOTE 1**

Kageyama froze, but just for a moment. There was no acrimony in Sakusa's tone, and they reprised their walk while still conversing.

“Oh. I am sorry I did…”

“Well, of course… that was just then. But even after that first encounter, up until we faced first time at Nationals, my distaste of you didn't fade out. Setters… I never thought much of them until we met again battling out during a match…”

“What?”

Kageyama could not believe what he was hearing: never had Sakusa behaved like Ushijima had, blurting flat out towards him that he considered setters as interchangeable slaves to spikers’ desires. But his confession at that point was sounding particularly matching the words former Shiratorizawa captain had addressed him with in his first year as Karasuno's setter. **NOTE 2**

“I have thought for a longtime setters were there to serve me. And that getting one or another it wouldn't change much for me, given my superior ability…”

“Oh.”

“Don't make that face… I don't think so anymore…”

“I must hope so…”

“But contemplating about it, reviewing the moment which changed my mind… if I gotta be honest, it has to do with Hinata kun, after all…”

“Is that so?”

Sakusa looked battled, and while the darkness falling would cover his features and despite his mask would hide half of his face, Kageyama could reckon the difficulty the spiker was having opening this up to anybody about what he had to perceive as a weakness of his, a moment of derailing self-doubting.

“I think it's my first ever time admitting it even with myself but… the fact _you_ could make such a diminutive and forgettable player an ace… it shocked me. It opened my eyes. Motoya had long understood that situation way before I realized it, but… you know when it seemed I was out of it during that first game between us?”

Kageyama nodded. That had been the only moment Karasuno had hoped that Final could have been theirs after all.

“What about it?”

“Then the only thing I was thinking of was that I had to have you playing with me. Because if you could make a player as disadvantaged as Hinata threatening like he had been during that game, then what would have you done with someone as great as I am?”

Kageyama smiled. Like it would happen to every witness of Kageyama's smile, Sakusa's heart skipped a bit. There was it, the greatest power which could weaken to his knees the omnipotent player Sakusa Kyoomi, ace extraordinaire and athletic monster, with a surgical game brain: Kageyama Tobio's unexpected faint smile.  
That smile could move the mountains shielding Sakusa's soul in no time, and leaving him gasping for air and trembling inside.  
Luckily those smiles were rare and extremely quick, or the guy would have gotten a truly hard task to fill playing alongside the setter.

“That's great, Sakusa San. Then all considered, since you are one of the most honest and virtuous people I know, you should back my idea of having Hinata getting his chance at the National Team selection, because you do owe him something, just like I do…”

Sakusa sighed.

“If you put it this way, you corner me… that's not very nice, you know…”

“And you think I am somebody nice in the first place?”

Sakusa would have answered in a while, if coming out from the building where the team had their restaurant service, the typhoon commonly known as Miya Atsumu wouldn't have disrupted all the atmosphere of serenity and pleasantness with his coarse and loud mouthed call up.

“You two!!! Where the heck have you been? We are all already inside, and everyone's got a death wish on you because we're hungrier than hungry and all waiting for you two princesses to join us…”

“Miya San… I am sorry…”

“Atsumu, shut up…”

Kageyama and Sakusa, who had spoken back at Atsumu at the same time, looked at one another faltering at progressing with their very opposite speeches, while Atsumu couldn't decide which one of them looked more awkward.  
It was always the closest of races between them deciding about that, in fact.

“There, there… move over quickly, coaches will join us in minutes, and not even you two can openly disregard manners by being later than them, ok?”

Both Kageyama and Sakusa agreed, and moved rapidly inside where the full ranks of Japan National Volleyball Team were ready to have dinner after a day of full practice.

The table set ups were free, and the players could sit six by six. Being Kageyama the youngest player in the lot, there was a mute agreement among the seniors to let him sit wherever he would feel more at ease, and act consequently.  
Kageyama would always sit at the same table, looking for the same people.  
Looking for the same _person_ , actually.

“Oikawa San… can we sit here?”

Having Kageyama at one’s table would mean to have Sakusa, Komori and Miya as well. Giving how spotting Oikawa anywhere would imply to have also Ushijima tagging, the table Kageyama would generally sit at would be always the same physical one, and the same also as for people sharing it with him.

“Can I object anyway, Tobio chan?”

“No you can't Tooru kun, so please move aside, and let me sit beside Tobio.”

Atsumu would act the same everytime he would cross Oikawa's path. The rest of the group had already accustomed themselves at their bitchy dynamic, and would often not pay much attention at their witty bickering which was instead extremely fun for the two guys involved.  
Miya Atsumu and Oikawa Tooru had a lot in common, but they would have rather died than accepting it.  
The six guys would be together effortlessly at any National gathering though, and for their coaches it was a good thing to see them developing chemistry also outside of matches.  
Also, considering how half of those players had clear social troubles, the fact that Miya, Oikawa and Komori could balance their mutism with humor, jokes or conversational prowess could only mean good for their symbiosis also when on a court.  
That was the reason behind their coaches inclination at hosting frequent camps with the chance to play selections coming from various schools around the Country, even though it would mean the adversaries could still be high school students at times.

“Ushiwaka chan, don't you agree that this is just unfair?”

“Unfair? If any it would be so to them, not to us…”

“No way. It’s unfair to us instead… it doesn't make sense for us to play against high schoolers anymore? We are all college students now..”

Komori coughed to underline his disagreement. Oikawa got even more fueled up then:

“Ops… of course this excludes our dear prodigious Tobio chan, who is _still_ an high schooler!”

Kageyama lowered his eyes, blushing. It wasn't his fault if he was the youngest player in the National Team.

“A sparring match still a good chance for us to play together, Oikawa. And you know it. I don't see the point in being upset. These chances we get to train all together are a good thing. We can work out our automatism only when we are all here.”

Everyone nodded at Ushijima’s words.

“But I don't even know how to write these guys team name!! Who are they? A bunch of cats?”

Kageyama widened his eyes. He hadn't learnt yet which team would be their sparring partner the day after.

“Oikawa San… could it be that we play Nekoma tomorrow?”

Oikawa felt a bit intimidated by the energy the younger setter seemed to have gained by mentioning their future opponents team name.

“Yes we will. They were often your training camp mates with Karasuno, am I right Tobio chan?”

Kageyama nodded. He was vibrating with joy.

“Lev Haiba will be there then. He is a fierce guy. A giant with troublesome intuitions… it’s gonna be… fun to play against them. I assure you you will see the point in this game later, Oikawa San!”

Oikawa looked at his kouhai intently. He accepted his words, without telling him, and just relaxed back on the table, eating quietly from there onwards. There had to be a reason behind Kageyama's excitement so openly offered to them all. He felt the curiosity to understand why he had that enthusiastic pouring out of words at them, which was quite the unusual happening.

“If I won’t have fun tomorrow, Tobio chan…” said Oikawa while they were heading to the sleeping quarters for the night “I’ll make you pay a toll though.”

“Me too, me too!!!” shouted Atsumu, eager to take part in a naughty bet.

“Which kind of payback would little Tobio chan feel the most negatively about?”

Miya and Oikawa exchanged a malicious, dangerous glance.

“Definitely something sexual… Tobio kun never speaks of anything sexual… I wonder if he even masturbates at all…”

Kageyama, trapped between the two elder setters, firstly lowered his head, but then, and surprisingly quick for the other two guys, he just said with the flattest and most natural voice:

“Of course I do. I am a very healthy teenager. It's just that I don't think these kind of things are a matter of conversation, are they?”

Oikawa looked at Miya. They understood each other's intentions straight, then looking both back at Kageyama, who wasn't embarrassed despite the quality of the subject they were discussing about, they both said:

“You are wrong. They are.”

Kageyama didn't back down:

“No they are not. And by the way, I am more the kind of person who does things, instead of speaking about them.”

And saying that, he passed through Oikawa and Miya, reaching his dormitory room.  
The two remaining setters had felt an inviting tickle after the last sentence the other and younger one had spoken, their manipulative temperament instinctively switching on at the implications of that phrase, like water in a dam had reached the ultimate level and it had to flood somewhere, someway, to prevent breakouts.

“Ehi, Tooru kun… don't you think this was an interesting convo right now?”

Oikawa was smirking.

“Definitely.”

Miya's eyes were a bunch of lit up hazel streams instead.

“Let's hope tomorrow the game will be easy, oh, so easy that we can claim to him we were bored to death by it…”

Oikawa's smirk became a satisfied grin.

“Yeah… then let's taunt him with a revealing obligatory payback, won't we, Miya chan…”

“Drop that chan.”

“Not a chance, sorry.”

“Fair enough. Let's become allies for once though.”

“I may think about it.”

And without wishing one another goodnight the two moved each to their respective rooms, eager to discover what the new day would bring to them.

The subsequent day started with a small training session right after the players had their breakfast.  
The sparring partners teams would have come at eleven in the morning, and being two high school teams, the plan was to face them in a condition of body recovery to even a bit the efforts on everyone's side.  
Kageyama, who was generally one of the first performers at any training session routine, was especially solicitous to test his own strength and resistance that morning.  
He came second after Ushijima in every test, and at the end of all his tasks he didn't even look very tried out.

“Ehi, Tobio chan… what's with you this morning? Look, you are not competing for athletic trials you know…”

Kageyama was changing clothes after another run.

“Oh, I know… but I feel very good today. I can't wait to play!”

Oikawa had to restrain himself from chuckling. In front of him, instead of the overgrown version of his kouhai, who was keeping growing taller and bigger than him, he could see the tiny kid he had first looked upon when in middle school. A round headed happy kid who could beam all around his purely blinding joy whenever he would be offered the chance to touch a ball and play with it. No matter what, Kageyama would not outgrow that phase of himself, Oikawa thought. If people would offer him a chance to play volleyball, they would invariably make him the happiest person on Earth.

“You truly are simple, Tobio chan…”

Kageyama, fully redressed, looked at Oikawa trying to make sense of what he was telling him.

“Am I?”

Oikawa tried to say he was, but then he suddenly realized that was far from the whole truth about him. Whether he was certainly very simple in his primal urges, he was actually a pretty complicated guy in many other ways.  
Before the lack of reply could startle the both of them, though, a feminine voice called Kageyama out.  
By his first name.

“Tobio!”

Oikawa turned head and body to look in the direction the voice which had called Kageyama so easily and familiarly had surged from.  
A tall, beautiful girl with European features was quickly coming at them, waving hands at Kageyama.  
Oikawa turned head back, certain to see a clueless kouhai looking at him in searching of an help, but what he saw instead was said kouhai promptly cheering back - albeit in a very composed way - and move toward the girl.

“The heck is that chick?”

Atsumu had come near, and questioned Oikawa straight.

“No idea. Never saw her. Unfortunately, if I can say…”

Atsumu groaned a little. Oikawa took a look at his face. He was watchful: his usually hazed droopy eyes set on the scene before him like they could not only see what was happening between Kageyama and that girl, but also like they were there to _hear_ what they were saying.  
Even though it was seeming like the only one talking was being the girl.  
Predictably so.  
Atsumu's eyes were still creepy though, Oikawa mentioned to himself, distracted by them to the point he had stopped to watch Kageyama with the girl himself.  
Miya Atsumu was not somebody to take lightly, he quipped eventually.  
After a few minutes, in which Kageyama did not speak more than maybe ten words, he parted from the girl who headed to the gym courts. As soon as Kageyama went back among his teammates, he felt two pairs of eyes stitching over himself like they could attract bits of his flesh off to them.

“So, Tobio chan…”

“Who's that girl?”

Oikawa and Miya would easily finish sentences off each other's at times.  
Kageyama looked as he were almost relieved their question was such an easy one to handle, and answered like it was not strange at all he had just talked with a girl in Tokyo.  
At a National Team Camp.

“She's a friend of mine. Alisa Haiba. She is the sister of that Lev guy I told you of yesterday.”

Miya and Oikawa mumbled. Kageyama remained silent, as he had no more to answer them. That was very much him, and the other two reckoned they had to try harder.

“A friend of yours… yeah right, Tobio kun. I really picture you as the type to make female friends in your free time…”

“Or male as well, to be frank…” added Oikawa.

Kageyama didn't catch the innuendo.

“But it's true. She's a friend of mine. Since a while, too.”

“She didn't look like a friend. And she called you up way too familiarly for being… just a friend, Tobio.”

“Well, Oikawa San… She's a friend to me. And I am always glad to meet her when I am in Tokyo, if it's possible. She also is a trainee under my uncle…” **NOTE 3**

At that, Oikawa thought it could have been true. Kageyama's uncle was somehow a keychain in Tobio's relationships after all. Also Atsumu had to think along that same line, because both of them let go of Kageyama without questioning him any further.  
The younger setter ran into the locker rooms to finish to get ready before their game, followed swiftly by the rest of the players, and ultimately their coach.

“Guys, the sparring partners of today are some of the most promising high school players of the whole of Kanto. We have set sights on some of them for your jerseys as well, so you better not take this game sluggishly.”

Japan National Team coach would not speak jokingly of such matters, and all of the players increased their seriousness about the sparring game exponentially out of his speech.

“We will rotate you in 4 set ups. The usual three ones plus a novelty. For the last set, we will put on court the six players that we have registered as the better performers, regardless of their usual role. Which means you could be in in the last match and have to fulfill not your primary position.”

The sparring games the training committee was putting up in the years heading to Tokyo 2020 were useful to increase the skills of each player at any position. Japan National Team was trying to shape itself like a team of superior all-rounders, and there were situations to be checked which would be especially well tested in informal games rather than during official competitions such as the Asian Games or the World Championship.  
The youngest players in the ranks were already satisfyingly versatile, despite being highly skilled specialists as well, but there was no limits to be traced with those guys so any new training chance would bring new elements to ponder and evaluate for the coaches and the players themselves as well.

After tree hours worthy of gaming, the final set had a libero, two ace spikers and three setters to be put on the court again.  
Maybe the coaches’ wish to have some guys bonding a lot in and out of court had slightly backfired.

“Three setters on court at once are maybe too many…”

“We can play every role!”

Miya, Oikawa and Kageyama said in one voice.  
Motoya chuckled.  
Ushijima and Sakusa stayed put in their place, waiting for the coaches’ decision.

“A word given is a word set in stone, and you six have earned this final set for yourselves. Congratulations, you all deserve. You are free to play this set as you want, guys.”

Everyone but Kageyama got immediately the full meaning of what was being said.

“So… we are going to coach ourselves?”

The coaching team wore a seraphic twinkle, all the same as they had trained to achieve uniformity.

“Precisely, Oikawa. And it won't be easy… you are all leaders in your own way. But a team bonding means also a team finding a balance among all egos. Even more so in a National Team.”

The six guys looked at one another. They were being giving a wonderful opportunity to seize for themselves. But how to solve the rebus of such incongruous cohabitation without wounds?  
They remained in circle, facing one another, mute.

“What if we… just play as the rotation goes? We can do pretty much everything. Komori San can serve and spike… Sakusa San and Ushijima San can easily cover up for everything… if we setters stay in positions one, three and five at the start, then every rotation is just… regular?”

Kageyama had spoken first because it was seeming to him everyone else was just being unnaturally taken aback, and time was running out and he couldn't wait to play again against Lev one more set. In no way he would have stepped over his respected seniors’ turn of speech otherwise.  
The other five guys looked at him and got inspired by his incisive resolve, even realistically mocking their own selves within their minds for not having realized straight what Kageyama had.  
They were to play against high schoolers after all. For how good some of them were, they had to be overwhelmingly better whatever formation they would pick as theirs.  
Why not being courageous, then.

“Yes. Let's do it like this. It's a good idea.”

“Wakatoshi are you sure? This means Atsumu may set for you…”

“It’s fine Kyoomi. And he could set for you too.”

“You two make me want to set only for Tobio kun to be honest…”

Motoya and Oikawa tried unsuccessfully to suppress a chuckle at Miya's exasperation. Kageyama was looking at them all only waiting to step back on court.  
Any other’s idea would have sounded fine to him, as long as he could quickly get back on court waiting for a ball to handle.

“Have you decided how to get back on court, guys? Which formation are you gonna use?”

“Our version of the 6-3.”

“Excellent, Sakusa kun. Have fun then!”

And they all had.  
They all had the kind of fun they used to before volleyball had become a duty, beside a pleasure.  
Because talented kids, often, stop to being told the sport they love still also a game.  
First and foremost.  
And then they start to substitute too often the raw satisfaction of attempting something hysterically funny and creative to let just logic polish their plays into a perfection which becomes winning, but also stalling. A not so vicious circle, but definitely not a magical adventure anymore, either.

While observing his most skilled bunch at work, National Team coaches kept writing notes down.  
There was much in the instinctual ways those players had which they could foresee becoming big trouble for other National Teams they would face.  
A sort of primary sense of boldness was at the basis of each one of those six guys playing style, and while it could at times become a boiling potion on the verge of explosion, then exploding, some other times it could be something extraordinarily overwhelming to face off, like their six differently shifted skilled inclinations could convey into one majestically powerful wave of talent, erasing everything opposing their path.

“These guys are good.”

“Indeed.”

“We must keep their gaming style… as much as a game as possible.”

When the sparring match ended, the young players who had been called to help the National Team training were told they could spend sometime with the National recruits and wander around the National Gymnasium and the whole of the buildings connected, like they were on a school trip. They would have also eaten alongside the prestigious players at around three pm.

“For real? We eat at fucking three pm? My calories intake regime will be fucked up majorly this week!”

“Tooru kun, you become really ugly with a potty mouth you know?”

“You are one to speak, Miya chan! You talk like a sailor, with your gangsta Kansai accent!”

“Come again?”

Atsumu would attempt to cut the throat of anyone daring to offend his homeland.

“Anytime, you gross bleached punk!”

“You two! Stop behaving like kindergarten kids. Let's shower and move away!”

Ushijima's reproaches would not be passed underneath. Both Oikawa and Miya stopped to fuss at each other immediately and taking up their belongings they proceeded to exit the gym, but right before they were to move out, they saw their youngest mate was still in his playing jersey in the middle of the court.  
As soon as he had a chance to, Lev had come to Kageyama to talk and share their impressions about the just played sets. It was more than a quarter of hour since they had started to talk, and they were far from finishing from what it seemed.

“That chick is back. Why did she get allowance of stepping on our court?”

“She is Nekoma dispensary appointee or something I believe…”

“Komori kun… did I ask you to fill me in about her job?” Atsumu thought a little more, then jerking Oikawa a little, he suggested the girl might be of their age. Oikawa said that to be in the medical staff she had to be at least of his own age. Then he stopped in his talking tracks. Atsumu looked at him to make him notice he had become awkwardly silent.

“It’s… nothing. Just a thought. A meaningless… little thought.”

Moving away from the gym, Oikawa glanced back where Tobio, Lev and the girl were still talking.  
Observing the way the three were posturing themselves, he noticed how the girl would lean into Kageyama's space with every word she would say. But what was shocking him was the way Kageyama himself would not only allow it, but how his body would give in at more vicinity with no trace of inconvenience.

“She must be… that girl.”

Needing to confirm his suspect Oikawa waited for Kageyama to head to the showers.  
It took a while, which increased his curiosity.  
When finally Kageyama came into the bath zone, Oikawa faked to have left something in his locker to conceal the fact he should've left the place long before.

“Oikawa San… are you still here? I am sorry I am this late… I…”

“You lost sense of time? No worries. Water still hot. By the way…” said Oikawa with the most neutral of voices “is that girl who came with Nekoma… by chance… that one you told me about last year?”

Oikawa had to not turn face at Kageyama to maintain his facade of being uninterested on the matter, but he was trying to scope a reflecting surface with his eyes where he could have seen his kouhai's reaction at his question even when giving him his shoulders.  
He failed at finding any.

“Yes. She's Alisa.”

“I see. Well… she's really beautiful, indeed.”

At that, he tried to pack back his stuff and close his locker, to move away. He tried to intercept Tobio’s eyes to catch some more truth from there and satiating his paradox curiosity on Kageyama's beyond suspicion lovelife. He met the usual Kageyama's face instead. Emotionless. Kind of cute. Intimidating even when relaxed.

Disappointing discovery.

“She definitely is. She has the most beautiful eyes, and she's really pleasant to be around.”

Disappointing answer.

“I bet. Now take your shower, or you will catch a cold. See you out!”

And moving decisively out of his kouhai's sight, Oikawa joined Ushijima who had been waiting for him near the training complex entrance.  
The six players who had played the last sparring game set had just gotten permission to skip the rest of training for the day and had only to answer the later call up for a session of light workout at around six pm.  
Close by Ushijima and Oikawa, in a few minutes, and with very different walking paces, Komori, Sakusa and Miya gathered as well.

“Does Kageyama kun knows about this change in today's schedule?” Asked Komori, always very caring about the setter.

“I sent him an SMS.”

“He probably won't check his phone until this evening though…”

“You’re right, Miya chan. Tobio's oblivious about technology and he won't consider these free hours as a blessing anyway. Knowing his thick skull, he will be blue he has to skip two more volleyball hours…”

Atsumu agreed. But he did it in pain. He hated to see how acknowledged and perceptive Oikawa could be about his crush. He had to monitor better why Oikawa would care about Tobio so much.

“You better go and pick him up out of the baths then…”

“And why would I have to rescue that rascal, Ushiwaka chan?”

Ushijima looked at Oikawa firmly but naturally.

“Because you are his senpai, and that's the right thing to do?”

Sakusa nodded.

“Whatever. Miya chan, come along! I won't wait for Tobio alone. I’d look dumb!”

“You look dumb anyway, Tooru kun…”

“Excuse me?”

Atsumu was already moving away in the requested direction, and signaled Oikawa to hurry up. The elder guy closed their gap in two jumps, and the duo settled in a commonly pleasing pace.

“Sadly we had fun, Miya chan…”

Oikawa started the conversation abruptly, certain the other would have picked up nonchalantly.

“It pains me to agree… we truly had.”

“Our teasing plan has to be postponed…”

“Mhh. Guess so.”

They had slowed their walk, as they could see from a distance Kageyama had exited the building and he was standing up clueless outside of it, unaware of what he was supposed to do.  
Both Oikawa and Miya were wearing an amused face at the sight but with different nuances to it.

“Say, Miya… what do you want of Tobio?”

Atsumu didn't dodge the question. He knew it was about to come.

“Everything. I want to possess every bit of him. And being myself, all his.”

Oikawa looked like his steps faltered a bit. He kept walking though, trying to be overlooked.

“You’re incredibly open… about how you feel.”

Atsumu smiled, closing his eyes the way he would when being honestly faced off.  
He was manipulative, but also appreciative of straightforward attitudes.

“Why shouldn't I? Old people question their wishes too much. Young people just accept them and try to make their wishes come true.”

Oikawa also smiled.

“Sometimes it's wiser to be careful on what we truly wish for…”

Atsumu seemed to not listen to what Oikawa had said. He was intently watching Kageyama, still motionless in the raising wind, his hair moving everywhere caressed by the shuffles, his face touched by the plain day light.  
Suddenly his whole body shook, and he took his phone off his pocket, talking into it.  
Both Oikawa and Miya stopped their steps. At the end of the brief phone call, Kageyama had smiled.  
He had smiled _fully and lengthy_.  
Atsumu tensed at the sight.

“Tooru kun, have you noticed? He never shares anything of himself….”

Oikawa got where the other was going.

“Nah. Maybe before. When he was younger. Not now. I don't think so.”

“You are wrong. He answers when questioned, sure. Sometimes he can open up a bit but… beside volley things… does he truly tell what he feels… what he hopes for… what he likes or dreams?”

Oikawa kept looking at Miya’s face. That was the face of somebody caught in a wrap of love. He would have never pictured the guy as the loving spirit.

“Tobio may as well truly just think of volley though…”

“I don't believe it. And that's what I want him to gift me with. I want all of the rest beside volley he is. Even though I do have an idea what that might be, until mine is just a work of my own mind, not supported by real evidence, I will keep wishing to enter Tobio's most secured life part… I long for it. I long for him to let me step in there… willingly.”

Oikawa admired the honesty of the guy. He was a brave one. Very self confident in his own way to be. Very self accepting. An interesting, a very interesting guy.

“Then you better study how to fight that girl he spoke with earlier…”

“Oh, the Nekoma girl?”

“She is in love with him. They have… some kind of past together.”

“And you know this because?”

Oikawa grinned. He loved when people got surprised by his knowledge on things. Or about gents. He particularly cared and wanted to be admired by everyone. Feared, as well. But mostly admired. He craved always for people's consideration the most.

“Isn't it obvious? Because unlike what you think, sometimes even our little Tobio opens up actually.”

“His taste about people is so questionable…”

“Well, that Alisa is quite the stunner actually…”

“I am talking about you…”

They had reached their teammate by then, and as they had rightly guessed, Kageyama didn't like the extra free hours their latest set played had gained him. He tried to verify if he could take part at the training with the rest of the team, but got severely dissuaded by Oikawa.  
And he would not make his senpai right in thinking he would have tried to do the wrong thing, so in the end he agreed in strolling around for a while, relaxing along the other guys.  
Reaching the exit where Komori, Sakusa and Ushijima were supposed to be found, the three found only the latter.

“Sakusa and Komori have decided to rest in their rooms.” Explained Wakatoshi “We’ll join them later in the gym for the finishing light workout.”

Oikawa looked at Miya, who seemed surprised by the fact; while heading out on the street, he teased the guy asking if he would miss Sakusa, who was always harsh and unceremonious with him.

“Not really. It’s that I find strange he’s offering me the chance to get nearer than himself to Tobio…”

Oikawa made a stupefied face.

“Oh.”

Miya shrugged at him, simply pointing out Sakusa was quite the possessive guy with things or people he had decided were his.

“So he considers Tobio like another Motoya?”

Atsumu preferred to lie than giving Oikawa more weapons: “Yeah… kind of.”

The group of four opted to go around Shibuya to enjoy their unexpected free afternoon. Kageyama and Ushijima were trailing while Atsumu and Oikawa would stop every five steps to point at shops, cafes, sculptures and otaku people dressed in cosplays.  
But they wanted also to properly eat, so they decided to treat themselves and walk towards Asuka, to taste their famous ramen which was the perfect match between noodles and tonkatsu.  
Predictably, none was happier than Kageyama about going to eat.  
Just before they were about to step into the restaurant they got yelled at by a couple of vigorous screamers.  
Kageyama marveled when he reckoned those were no others than his Karasuno's kouhais, Saizo Kyouya and Ryoma Tojo.

“Kageyama senpai!”

As usual, Kyouya would look ecstatic next to his idol. But what no one could have suggested to Kageyama he would be dealing with was the way Ushijima came between him and his kouhais to start speaking with Tojo.  
Even Oikawa had to raise an eyebrow at that.

“Wakatoshi, nice to meet you!”

Kageyama, whose interpersonal skills were still mostly rough, had a clear moment of complete unawareness about what was happening, and on his face it was very readable the fact he was at a confused peak. Kyouya had to intervene, in the kindest of ways.

“Kageyama senpai, you may not know this, but Ushijima San is Ryoma’s cousin.”

Oikawa and Kageyama both widened their eyes and mouth.

Ushijima and Tojo looked at them like it was unnecessary to make such a deal out of nothing.  
Kageyama invited the two younger guys inside to sit with them and have some food.  
Saizo accepted under the condition he would pay for himself, and Tojo agreed under the one his best friend would pay also for his own.  
During the time of their food consumption Kageyama learnt about how Tojo and Ushijima had part of their families in common, and how the two kouhais of his were in town to find something nice to wear at Akiteru Tsukishima and Saeko Tanaka wedding post reception in two days.

“You won't be able to make it in time there, am I right Kageyama senpai?”

Kyouya was clearly sad about the fact, and when Kageyama confirmed he would have never made it in time, as that day he was planning to check Itachiyama University campus for the subsequent year Saizo’s face went lifeless for a moment.  
Oikawa thought it was very cute the way Kageyama would notice that and how he would try to cheer his very resembling kouhai up again by giving him a lot of attention from there onwards.  
He also noticed how Ushijima’s cousin would not be as happy about that extra care, even if only, in a very Ushijima kind of way, by making his stare colder and his posture stiffer.

“You ditch a wedding reception just for visiting something you could in another day, Tobio chan?”

At the way Kageyama got called by Oikawa, Saizo twisted in his chair. His beloved, utterly perfect senpai hadn't to be called in such childlike ways. But before he could say something back at Oikawa, he got cut off by Atsumu, who said with the proudest tone this visit Kageyama had planned to make at Itachiyama College had been detailed and approved since weeks.

“Sakusa, Komori and I have all under control. We’ll be wooing Tobio so much he will regret he has to come back to Miyagi Tooru kun. After this visit, he will wish to be already one of us.”

“Itachiyama doesn't hold a candle to Today, Miya chan.”

“In your dreams, maybe…”

Before another wording war would start between Miya and Oikawa, Kageyama had the intuition to switch topics in a tasteful way, and to focus back on his kouhai to keep making him feel considered, he wondered why he and Tojo had chosen to study at Karasuno instead than applying to Shiratorizawa, being their grades very good in the first place.  
Kyouya admitted his only push at being in Karasuno had been his will to play alongside Kageyama.

“I just wanted to be where you were, Kageyama senpai!”

The way Kageyama blushed and averted gingerly his eyes at the open appreciation he was being shown hit all the people he was with.  
Oikawa thought he had to be a good senpai to inspire such a devotion in somebody talented - he had notion Saizo had numbers in him - and he also thought that he was adorably cute while blushing.  
That hadn't been the first time he had thought so.

“Well… thank you, Saizo kun… and what about you, Tojo kun?”

Kageyama knew he was testing his luck; Tojo was still mostly a Tsukishima’s mold and much like his own favorite senpai, Ryoma would be blunt and salty at him or his requests for no particular reason other than willing to be so.

“I had long before decided I would have chosen the same place Kyouya did. So… Karasuno for him… then Karasuno for me too it was going to be.”

“I am still displeased about that, Ryoma.” Said Ushijima with his most serious and deep voice “you would have been good after Tsutomu kun in Shiratorizawa.”

Tojo respectfully but as seriously stated back how Karasuno had beaten Shiratorizawa in the last two matches which had counted. Everyone feared for Tojo’s health, anticipating Wakatoshi’s wrath at that pun.

“That's why I am bitter, though. With you on our side, Shiratorizawa would have won instead.”

At that, Kageyama, very calmly, very good naturedly, very automatically replied:

“I beg to differ, Ushijima San. We would have found a way to fight Shiratorizawa even then.”

And looking at the face Kageyama was making while saying what he was, nobody dared to contradict him.  
Not even Ushijima, who just stared a while into his eyes, then deflected them.

After the conversation had developed out of volley, Miya caught Oikawa’s attention and referring to what Kageyama had done in shutting Ushijima down, he explained:

“See, Tooru kun? This is what I long for. There is an untouchable quality in Tobio which is… hypnotic for me. The way he suddenly becomes so assertive that everyone else has to back down… the way he speaks just because he feels what he will say is true, without fears, without filters, without concept of the consequences… that moves me. He… he moves me.”

Oikawa nodded.  
He would understand that.  
He didn't like to, but he could do it.

After their late lunch, the four Japan Team players parted cheerfully from the young Karasuno's ones, and while getting back to the National Gymnasium, Oikawa and Atsumu agreed in trying to force Kageyama at some kind of open up move.

The afternoon spent with his kouhai's had inspired the both of them at trying to unfold more of the sides of Kageyama which would made him cutely blush, maybe because they had once more feared the side of his which would silence even a ruler like Ushijima, and to balance that they had a need to excercise power on Tobio, in whatever way.  
Their curiosity was of the kind cats can get killed for: catchy, fascinating, and utterly poisonous.  
And just because of that, absolutely irresistible.

“Tobio, your kouhais are adorable. Especially the setter one… he's like another you!”

Kageyama chuckled a little, admitting many thought so of them, and completely missing the part of Oikawa's discourse which had defined him too adorable.

“I am flattered Saizo kun thinks so well of me. I think very well of him too. I also think well of Tojo, who despite his first impression given, is a totally reliable and loyal guy.”

Atsumu and Oikawa glanced in reciprocity then the latter continued:

“And… speaking of adorable people… won't you tell Atsumu here what you and that beauty from Nekoma are?”

Kageyama looked dubious.

“What do you mean, Oikawa San? I already said that… we are friends?”

Oikawa mellifluous and silky came nearer to Kageyama, and kept questioning his real intentions with the girl:

“She still looking at you with heart shaped eyes though…”

Kageyama visibly flinched, and then Atsumu knew it was his moment to speak:

“Tobio kun! You sly guy… is she your girlfriend?”

Kageyama blushed faintly. He didn't like how fast the subject was moving into private matters. Still, he didn't want to shield facts from his trusted senpais. And Oikawa knew almost all anyway. Beside the sexual foreplays he and Alisa had during previous year Obon, at least. Or beside a few of heated phone calls they had at the start of the year. Or excluding the couple of times Alisa had come searching for him at his home, hoping he were alone as usual.  
Beside a little number of unspoken circumstances, Oikawa knew most about what he and Alisa were.

“No… she's not. She's a friend…”

Again a little gaze averting which Atsumu couldn't miss.  
Perfect.

“Tobio kun… you mean she is a _special friend,_ don't you?”

Kageyama realized how he was in company with two older and good looking guys who had way more social skills than he would have dreamed of; there was nothing he could have done those two wouldn't have already done themselves.  
Why hesitating in admitting Alisa wasn't exactly a proper friend? Why avoiding to accept he had never thought or done things such as those he had with her with Hitoka San, or Kyoko San, or Etsuko Kawasaki or any other girl he had met?

“She… I… well, it’s complicated.”

Miya and Oikawa, now side by side facing Kageyama directly, both quipped:

“Nope. It’s not. It's quite normal instead.”

“Is it?”

Asked Kageyama, eyes wide and naive at his senpais:

“Sure, Tobio chan. You have a gorgeous girl in love with you. And you like her, don't you?”

Kageyama recalled his first time speaking with Oikawa about her. Probably Oikawa San has forgotten, he thought, and I need to replicate my answers there and then to him here and now:

“I do. But I can't reciprocate her love, I told you already Oikawa San…”

Miya Atsumu had to know more. More about what the other two had spoken about, and when and where. And he had to gain some upper hand in that whole girl mess which seemed to value something for Kageyama. He had to understand. He had to do something to get to be a player in this game Tobio was toying with, unconsciously.

“Why can't you, Tobio kun?”

Kageyama looked at Miya intensely, so much that Atsumu's mouth went dry.

“I can't steal time out of volleyball. And no girl deserves a lover who can't put them in the first place in their life.”

Atsumu's eyes blinked with a sparkle of triumph. _Maybe the point which makes your reasoning fallacious ain't volley, Tobio… maybe the wrong factor is for you to think a GIRL shall come before volley… what if by being with her you would understand what you really need, and you would see how who you REALLY want is somebody sharing your same path of greatness towards glory?_

“Oh, dear Lord! That's so silly, Tobio kun… no, wait… listen to what I have to say: this girl loves you and she would probably drink your bath water from what I have seen today. Even now, that you are opposing her being with you, she wants you. Even now, she looked happy to be with you. What do you think she would feel if you’d accept her love?”

“But I can't… It wouldn't be fair… she wouldn't be my first thought, while I would be hers…”

Atsumu grinned.

“But you are still that nevertheless. Then why don't you let her have at least some of you? I bet you told her how things are, haven't you?”

“Well… yes?”

“Of course you did. That's so you. And… am I wrong, or she is keeping circling around you despite knowing she will never come before volley for you?”

Kageyama fell silent.

“I take your silence as a confirmation. Then, don't you think she would be happier than now even if you would just say you accept her love, without giving her any different setup than you two have already?”

“Well…”

Atsumu understood why Kageyama was being blushing. His sheer luck, always at play, had him gain the final advantage in pushing the guy where he wanted to. That would have surprised even pompous Oikawa.

“Tobio, you are having with this girl Alisa a sexual kind of encounters don't you?”

Oikawa looked at Miya in shock. Little Tobio would never… or?

“Sexual ain't the word… well, not properly…”

Miya Atsumu was feeling his power doubling with every new stuttering of Kageyama. He had to try for the final prize.

“Then what are you waiting for? To be old and lost? This is your youth. These are the chances coming at you, the people wanting you in their lives, the encounters which may be unforgettable even if they are to last no more than a falling star’s shine. Why are you refusing them?”

Kageyama was mute, but his eyes were alive. 

“Volley is all you live for. That's fine. Believe me, I get you fully there. But as in sport… not everything which counts has to come in the first place to be relevant… don't you think?”

Kageyama snapped. That was true. Like in sports… sometimes coming in second, or third… or just taking part and trying… it could be as important as finishing on top. It had happened to him too. He could relate.  
Surging his face back, a fierce face up for his senpai, Kageyama said:

“Miya San… thank you!”

And taking Atsumu's hand in his, Kageyama shook it enraptured. He looked so shiny Atsumu had to bite his own tongue to avoid to lean into him and steal a kiss.

“Will you accept Alisa's love?”

“I will tell her how I find her company pleasant, and her personality charming, and how she can take the best of me at times. I will tell her nothing changes between us but if she likes to, until when she feels inclined to, she can consider me… well…”

Oikawa had to help his clumsy but growing kouhai then:

“There, there, Tobio chan: just say it. If you can't say it here to us, I wonder how can you try to tell it in front of her…”

Kageyama breathed in, in a stupidly cute and kiddo way, and then quickly blurted:

“She can consider me her boyfriend!”

It felt like that word, that super abused word, _“boyfriend”_ was echoing around the three guys for minutes after the youngest had said it.  
Oikawa and Miya smiled at him. He was looking flustered and inviting and defenseless and they had to think he was really cute when appearing so.

“Good, Tobio kun. I think you can go and call her now. She can also come along the morning after tomorrow when we will visit the campus…”

“She has to be in Hokkaido then…”

“You know her schedule this well?”

Kageyama blushed fully.

“Go call her, disaster of a guy. Tooru kun and I will cover for you the cleaning duties before the light training starts…”

“But…”

“Go, Tobio chan, before I regret my magnanimous gesture… leave now!”

And thanking both senpais Kageyama went in his room to call Alisa, before their final task of that day.  
Staying with brooms in their hands after having stepped into the court they had to clean, looking out where Kageyama had disappeared in a flash, Oikawa and Miya reprised their conversation.

“Why did you push him in her arms, Miya chan? I don't get it…”

Atsumu's eyes were a golden fire.  
He was certainly proud of his doings.  
It hadn't been a mistake.  
It hadn't been a fluke.  
Miya Atsumu had played his game like a chessboard master.  
He had planned to reach that result.  
Oikawa thought the guy could be scarier than Ushijima, observing his eyes darting around.

“You don't get to have somebody by limiting their choices, Tooru kun. You get somebody when after they have tried the most they could, they realize you are undoubtedly the best option.”

Oikawa nodded.

“That's right. But you can never control everything, nor getting to cross out every encountered person somebody may meet.”

“But I can be that one person that somebody will still find at the end of any other meeting. The one who will remain after each one of those will be expired and vanished.”

Oikawa started to clean, leaving Miya in his place.  
Kageyama had to be wary of that guy to be safe, Oikawa thought.  
Or maybe _he had to_ , if he cared about his own well being, as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Obake (お化け)** are a class of yōkai, preternatural creatures in Japanese folklore. Literally, the terms mean a thing that changes, referring to a state of transformation or shapeshifting.
> 
>  **NOTE 1 & Note 2** Real occurrences in anime/manga.
> 
>  **NOTE 3** For Kageyama's uncle role, please refer to my previous and starting fiction Okurimono
> 
>  **Volley Scheme 6-3** In volleyball, the 6-3 offensive rotation is the one of the most unique rotations teams can do. Not a lot of coaches or officials have seen a 6-3 so it can confuse your opponents and even the officials, therefore it is expected to get some out of rotation calls or a lot of looks of confusion and no out of rotation calls while playing with it. A 6-3 requires you to have 3 very talented and versatile players on your team that can do EVERYTHING and do everything well. All 3 need to be able to set, hit, block and play middle, outside and right side hitters. As for the other 3 positions on the floor you can mix and match. Given how in my fanfiction I try to be as explicative as possible and as true as possible to the game of volley, it's natural how to allow to play together Lord Kageyama along Miya, Oikawa, and Sakusa and Ushijima and Komori, this had to be the go-to formation for me. I always hope that by reading my fanfictions people can appreciate more volleyball. That shall have been what Haikyuu had to provide, but it ended being a volleyball version of Boku No Hero Academia with Hinata superstar, and I don't have much more hopes there ;)
> 
>  **Asuka Restaurant** a real restaurant in Tamagawa Dori, Dogenzaka, located in Shibuya, Tokyo. It serves the best ramen ever, for real, and it's located at walking distance from the National Tokyo Gymnasium where this chapter is set. As usual, my fanfictions use all realistic elements at disposal. My advice for you if you ever go vising Tokyo is... TRY ASUKA out! You won't regret it :)
> 
>  **Saizo Kyouya and Ryoma Tojo** are original characters already created for Okurimono. Here I just add the twist of Tojo being Ushijima's relative. I love Ushijima dearly so I have tried to develop a bit of his circle in a cute way (hopefully!)


	4. (Y)our Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "And You Can Tell Everybody,   
> This Is Your Song...  
> It May Be Quite Simple But,   
> Now That It's Done...  
> I Hope You Don'T Mind,   
> I Hope you Don't Mind...  
> That i put Down In Words  
> How Wonderful Life Is  
> While You'Re In The World."
> 
> **Elton John _"Your Song"_**

“What is that, Tsukki?”

Yamaguchi was observing his best friend humming into his phone with a concentrated expression. He had approached him trying to not disturb his task, but in the end his curiosity had prevailed and he had to ask Tsukishima out.

“Oh, this…? It's a new app I downloaded the other day. I am testing it.”

Yamaguchi innerly laughed. As usual, Tsukishima wasn't eager to explain his doings to anyone. He would rather give a minimum indication to answer questions which would at first not really be informative enough to fulfill anyone's expectations about it.  
Yamaguchi had experience of many years of those kind of answers from him to take it by the heart, and he also had all the love in the world for the taller guy to pressure him out of his comfort zone, risking with that to become annoying to him.  
Most of the time, he would just rephrase his questions at Kei to let him open up following his preferences about the quantity of his own soul he had to expose for properly exhausting the essence of them.

“Oh, cool, Tsukki! And what you're using it for?”

Tsukishima looked at his childhood friend from above; Tadashi had stopped to grow already and was stuck at 183 cm, almost 20 cm short of the still blossoming Kei.

“I wanted to try creating a sort of jingle for tomorrow…”

Yamaguchi glowed.

“For Saeko San and Akiteru kun’s walk down the aisle?”

Tsukishima nodded.

“Woah!!! Can you show me how?”

Tsukishima couldn't deny his friend then. He felt a bit embarrassed to have been caught in his project, because he would have rather loved to downsize his contribution at the ceremony for the subsequent day and if Yamaguchi wouldn't have asked so much already, the day after he would have told everyone the jingle he was composing had been simply found online and rearranged in five minutes.  
Sighing in the air, he compelled and showed Tadashi the Hum On app, sitting at the third spot in his phone go-to app setup, testifying the fact it was one of those he had been willing to use the most.

“You… well, to use this you just hum a melody into the microphone… and they create either sheet music or an arranged melody out of it…”

“Awesome, Tsukki!”

“…but I am just playing with it yet. I mean… I haven't created a thing out of it so far. As I told you before, I was just testing it.”

Yamaguchi didn't doubt Tsukishima. And knowing him as he did, he would have never asked Karasuno's Captain to make him hear scratches out of his musical inspirations, because he would have never allowed any living soul to listen to anything less than a perfectly immaculate piece coming from him.  
Which was the reason their band would have probably only played covers in its short to be lived existence, because Tsukishima, in his perfectionism - and insecurity - would not consider any of his personal attempts at songwriting ever worthy of people's ears.

“I am sure Akiteru kun will love anything you decide to bring. Whatever it will be, coming from you, it is gonna make him the happiest.”

Kei nodded, blushing a little.  
That was very true.  
And his brother deserved to be the happiest on his most important day.

“I will make something out of this, don’t worry.”

“I never worry when it's you, Tsukki…”

Said Yamaguchi, moving out to leave Kei free to experiment with the Hum On app, not bothered by unwanted listeners.

“… all you truly want to do, in the end, you come up doing it well.”

And before Tsukishima could reply, Yamaguchi was already gone out of his room, leaving him at the desk with a bewildered face.

“Tadashi you… idiot…”

At the thought of the little derogatory namesake he had addressed Yamaguchi with, Kei blanked for a quick instant.  
In his hand, the phone had shut down with his humming scratches untouched.

_Yeah… of course now I also name call people like he does…_

Tsukishima rested on the desk, front all over it, and his long arm lazily hanging until his hands were at the floor limitations.  
His back mounted at the huge sighing he exhaled, his head still glued on the desk.

_How stupider can I get? It’s no use feeling this way, just because he won't be there tomorrow…_

And flashing himself up, he took in his hand the phone, sliding the screen over until his Instagram opened up.

_There, look his idiot face… you really cannot smile properly at all, King…_

Tsukishima was eyes into the latest picture on his feed, an uploading from Miya Atsumu picturing him, Kageyama and what had to be a slice of Sakusa Kyoomi in front of Itachiyama College Main Building.  
The caption read “soon to be together here, teammates for life” and Kei couldn't stand any of it.  
The triumphant smirk of Atsumu; the fact that despite trying to not be seen in the picture, Sakusa Kyoomi was totally embracing Kageyama in it; and how Kageyama himself could extrude contentment even if not properly smiling, clearly happy to be where he was in those hours.

_I hate this…_

Tsukishima wanted to erase from his mind the biting jealousy that picture was planting into the core of his heart, but he couldn't stop looking at it.

_Fuck you, King…_

Then his eyes fell on a comment under the picture:

“Miya San, erase this please!”

_Less social aware dork ever, you really are one in a million…_

A smile appeared then on Tsukishima's face.

_That's right, Miya Atsumu: for a year more, WE are his teammates for life… so erase it. Erase it now._

Tsukishima landed like a dead corpse on his bed, cranky sounds out of his unflattering crashing into it. He had to try to create that jingle for his brother but at the moment all melodies he could think of were sad songs.

_Shit…_

To shake off himself bad vibes, he went down in the kitchen, where his mum had left him a piece of strawberry shortcake to eat. He sat down, quietly munching on it, hoping its sweetness could counter against the bitter grasping on his heart.

It couldn't any well.

But walking back to his room, as he started to climb the stairs up, he felt a rush of words elbowing one another into his brain, a series of connected phrases so neatly placing themselves into it he unbalanced himself and measured the wall on his right side, almost drunk on them.

_Oh, this is bad…_ Kei thought, but he was starting to exhilarating himself as well on top of it, _… but if I don't put them down straight off, I might lose them forever…_

And that would be the absolute last thing he wanted to do.

~~~~~……~~~~~…..~~~~~……~~~~~…….~~~~~~……..~~~~~

Sitting down   
Feeling down with no rights to  
I am my own maker,  
A moon with a dark soul

Small things please me,  
The surroundings I am familiar with  
But there is something I crave for  
In a darkness which is not my own

Peel off  
All the things of me,  
All the layers I put up  
In this game we have  
Which I wanna win.

Jumping up  
At the thought of you,  
Laying down   
At the vision of you  
You’re so far away,  
But I feel you here  
And suddenly   
Both our darknesses can disappear

 

Peel off  
All the things of me  
All the layers I have  
I protect myself with…

Peel off  
All the things of me,  
All the layers I put up  
In this game we have  
Which I know I can't win.

 

And so, come back,  
Come back to me

To peel off,   
Peel off Me  
Everything I called mine  
When all I wanted  
Was you to be.

Come back,  
C’mon come at me

And Peel Off  
Peel Off Me  
All the Layers I have  
To see the only true me.

~~~~~~~~……..~~~~~~~~……~~~~~~~……~~~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Hum On** Is the real app described in the chapter with which I have created the scratch of **Peel Off Me** melody :)  
>  You can listen to it here: https://vimeo.com/253121227


	5. Moonstruck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I been crying out, "How bad can a good time be?"  
> Shooting off my mouth, that's another great thing about me  
> I have everything but I feel like nothing at all  
> There's no risky thing for a man who's determined to fall...
> 
> You're the best thing about me  
> The best thing that ever happened a boy  
> You're the best thing about me  
> I'm the kind of trouble that you enjoy  
> You're the best thing about me  
> The best things are easy to destroy  
> You're the best thing about me...
> 
> Why am I  
> Why am I walking away?  
> Walking away  
> Why am I walking away?
> 
>  **U2** _The Best Thing About Me_

The day of Akiteru Tsukishima and Saeko Tanaka’s marriage couldn’t have been blessed with a better weather.  
Despite the forecast predictions had cursed that day of early April with the worst option (the infamous “variable” one, which could have meant quite possibly anything ranging from rain shower to unbearable heat for a Spring outing to pleasant breeze till windstorms), just hours into the night which had preceded the event a powerful, benevolent and unexpected wind had cleared the sky underneath which the ceremony and the reception would have taken place, and as the morning had come, a blue sapphire natural roof had greeted all the people involved in the marriage ceremony and rituals, making their smiles wide and open since the start of their preparations for the holy act.

Akiteru and Kei’s mum couldn’t stop thanking the Kami for their benignity, keeping making everyone in the house admit it had all to do with her insisted plea about having a shinzen shiki instead than a normal, not religious ceremony in whatever hotel in Sendai.

Akiteru had supported mildly his family’s preference for the Shinto ritual, fearing it could have seemed pretentious to his fiancée and her family, which was of a more modest kind than the Tsukishima’s.  
But he had underestimated the importance traditional values had in the Tanaka’s household, greatly.  
In fact, Saeko had been touched by the idea, so much that, he had learnt, once she had to visit the temple for the personal rehearsals and instructions she had broken in tears more than once, feeling blessed to get to spend her most important day in such a beautiful set up.

He couldn’t wait to see her dressed up in a white, dazzling shiromuku... would she stand to wear the tsunokakushi?  
Not that she could ditch it, he had thought... after all the traditions were to be followed especially regarding the dressing code during their wedding, but his Saeko would never submit to no one, whatever history and manners the headpiece she was going to carry and display was meant to suggest or inspire.  
And he loved her just like that: he loved how fierce and assertive she was, he loved her bright energy and her endless positivity, and that smile which had made him fall in love instantly, from the very first time he had seen it.  
She was so different from him, and still, so good with him, and so good _for_ him.  
Kei had said he was never as good as when she was with him, and the same valued in reversal.

Kei...

How was feeling that morning his quiet but never really quiet little brother?  
He had no time to check on him.  
To get ready for the ceremony and slip into his hakama was no joke, as stiff as he was motioning in those hectic hours.

“You won’t be able to walk or bend for your pledge if you keep being this rigid, bro...”

Akiteru jumped at the words, turning quickly to the source of it, and then standing open mouth and speechless in front of an already prepped up Kei.

Kei looked at him with his usually over judging smirk.

“Do I have something on my face?”

“N-Nope... it’s... wow! Kei... you look gorgeous!”

Kei tch-ed with his best annoyed glare.  
He was pretty bad at dealing with open admire, though he was well aware of his good looks and had a good care of his own grooming.

“Thank you but instead of complimenting me you must hurry up. We have to leave soon and the guys for the video making of today are asking mum how long it’s gonna take the groom... I mean... even she did get ready faster than you...”

Akiteru blushed.  
Then without thinking, he replied carelessly one day Kei would have understood how hard it is to get ready for your own marriage.  
The pitying expression his younger brother immediately put up, unwilling, but definitely well understandably, risked to shatter in pieces Akiteru for the rest of his best day.

“Kei, please... forgive me. My oh my, how stupid can I be? I... didn’t mean...”

The taller brother shook his head, trying to chase away from his eyes the pain of having thought out of his sibling’s sentence that he would never be finding himself in that position, as same gender Shinto marriages couldn’t happen.

“Don’t mind. I know. But trust me, I would anyway be way faster than you are today, if I could do it.”

Akiteru didn’t have words to offer back, only a not spoken apology and a newfound determination in finishing his own preparation which was the only way to move on from that quick-sandy territory.

When Akiteru moved downstairs to complete the ranks of his family, the Tsukishimas moved in two different cars towards Sendai Osaki Hachiman-gu Shrine, which had been recently reopened after undergoing maintenance.

Akiteru’s mum was thrilled the Authorities had green lighted the marriage to take place there, and as she was keeping talking, most certainly to silence her mummy tension she was feeling inside in such an eventful day, Kei had to think that particular allowance wasn’t even going to be the most peculiar of the lot regarding their planned ceremony.

“I thought you would have spent a couple of words about the attendance for the marriage as well, mum...”

The impeccably coiffed lady looked at her youngest son with a doubtful eyebrow raising up.

“Why?”

Kei lost his smug in a second. If there was anybody in the world ready to uncover his bluffs naturally, his mum was it.

“Well... it’s certainly not in the orthodoxy of Shinto weddings to bring... volley teams as a part of the involved families?”

Kei was blushing. At that point his own surprise about the fact had to sound idiotic to somebody who had no objections to it. But it was too late to backtrack about his position on the matter. And bringing people other than the near relatives to the Saishu Ichirei was indeed a very rare occurrence he could not been blamed to consider a strangeness.

“But Akiteru and Saeko chan bonded the way they did thanx to you and your teammates, my over critical son. There’s no way the Kami won’t accept all those guys as belonging to the Seishi Soujo and that they won’t bless the marriage even more when all of those guys will bow during the Saishu Ippai...”

Kei at that could just foresee Hinata doing some inane mistake in the most sacred moment of the ritual, just to keep up with his own habits.  
But yeah... as his mum had presented it, it didn’t sound so bad to include past and present Karasuno Volley Team members in the ceremony.

“... though I know not all of your guys will be coming today?”

A deep cut into his chest made Kei lose his breath.  
But a bump on the road made it look like the reason was mechanical rather than emotional.

“Yeah. Sugawara San, Shimizu San... and Kageyama are in Tokyo today, and they could not arrange their commitments to make it in time...”

“What a pity...”

“Mmh.”

The conversation stopped. Kei turned his face out to follow the road lines and Missus Tsukishima tried to relax before the arrival, using the span of traveling time they had left to slow her heartbeat and to remind herself to behave the calmest and the classiest she could to not embarrass her firstborn.

And especially the son born after him.

When the carousel of cars arrived at the entrance of the infamous shrine, which was the home of the guardian deity of the Date family, the late cherry blossoms were still puffing delicately around, in that first week of April, complimenting majestically the black lacquer and the golden leafs decorating the massive structure.

“Will your teammates come soon, Kei?”

“They are on their way. I got a message just right now from Tadashi, mum...”

“Okay. Then I better call up the priest so we can start to take our positions, and then I will help Saeko chan in moving to the waiting room along Aki chan...”

The rituals of Shinto weddings were very choreographed and precise, and despite a couple of rehearsals had been done before the actual ceremony, the fear of mistaking something just when one had not to was in every single heart of the attendees, but especially, as it was very natural to in the ones of the mothers involved.

After a few minutes, Missus Tsukishima came back by her youngest son’s side, claiming his attention with whispered words:

“Kei... Akiteru and Saeko have taken their places in the waiting hall... let’s move...”

Since the ritual ordered that the sacred walking of the couple from the waiting room to the proper shrine, called sashin, had to be strictly performed only by them and their own families, it had been established that the former and present staffers and players of Karasuno volleyball team would have expected out of the temple entrance for the arrival of the procession, and then, once it had passed them by, they would have joined it following all the cortège by taking their places after the families’ ranks.

When the train of slowly walking people started to approach the wide and clean space of the main court in face of the temple, everyone looked at Akiteru and Saeko, leading the way under the impressive protection of the well wishing red umbrella held over their heads by a beautiful temple maiden.  
From his relevant position behind the parents of the bride, Tsukishima glanced at Yamaguchi and Yachi, who were very identifiable among the Karasuno people, with their cute and coordinated dresses and with their hands clasped in a tight grip. **NOTE A**  
They were surely imagining themselves in place of Akiteru and Saeko, as the soon to be married ones were walking similarly holding hands over the shrine, after having crossed together the obligatory red bridge every temple where you can get married has to have, for how minimally placed.  
Looking at them, then looking at his brother and his soon to be wife, graciously progressing with minute steps in their beautiful traditional attires, Tsukishima had to sigh.

Young love, so pure...

Young _normal_ love... so lucky, he thought, with a fine note of not malicious yet persistent envy for those who were that day (or could have been another day in their futures) ready to celebrate their blessed union. _So lucky..._ in getting feasted upon among happy and proud families, solemn priests and miko, and looked at with admiration from occasional passerby along the way.

Even though, he had to precise in his own mind, his kind of love wasn’t abnormal. It was just unlucky.

It was not even properly unlucky... more uneasy... maybe. 

Uneasy... well... maybe it was harder to parade, and at his age, maybe also harder to follow through but...

But it was his kind of love. He had stopped trying to refuse it, although he would occasionally curse himself for it, albeit without conviction.

Looking at Akiteru, radiant in his marrying get up, Kei finally stopped feeling envious.  
Even if he could not hope to get married one day in a lavish Shinto ritual, that would have not been a reason for him to give up on love.

Loving hearts are of all kinds.

Love is of all kinds.

And as long as it’s a sincere kind of love, the blessings will surely come soon or later to embellish it and make it solid.

It had been his brother who had taught him that, after all... and to be whatever kind of envious towards him that day would have been an unforgivable sin, and Tsukishima Kei was not a sinful boy in his core.

The arrival at the Shrine had been almost simultaneous between the Tanakas and the Tsukishimas, with a double queue of cars which had arrived at the parking zone outside the sacred temple with impeccable timing and it had all been quite quick since then, so much that Kei had practically missed out the way Saeko Tanaka had dressed herself.  
But now, following the line tracked by the soon to be married protagonists of the day, he could admire her perfectly fitting white shiromuku, dazzling under the sun, and guess her made up raven hairdo from under her white wataboshi.  
Each and every one of Saeko’s steps were just the same: same rhythm and same length, soundless, like she could actually fly over ground.  
Even from behind, she looked like a goddess.  
And also his brother was holding his own.

Lucky.  
Lucky in their spontaneous and tenderly common love...  
Lucky to have found one another, and having finally named in the other a reason to live for the best.

_Yaoyorozu... please let them be happy forever. Let my brother find and keep all that he is certain to have been blessed with today..._

After the procession, the attendees moved to take their sitting place in front of the shrine.

 _Haiden chakuza_ , thought Kei, reminding himself where he was supposed to take his place in the decided disposition which was seeing the bride and groom sit the closest to the god, the bride on the left and the groom on the right, from the god’s side.

He couldn’t avoid to think that since the deity worshipped at the temple was a warrior one, that marriage was starting already to be in clear favor of the energetic Saeko, rather than inclining towards his accommodating brother. But then looking at their faces as they were starting to be purified in the Shubatsu ritual, he forgot his trail of reasoning, hypnotized by their grace and beauty in that moment of intimacy and care.  
There would not be a winner and a loser in that marriage, realized Kei.  
There would only be love and respect and that cute rollercoaster of taking and giving which is the quality of well established unions.

_Real loving bonds have no masters and no slaves... no upper or lower hands to be established in stone... real love is... fluid. Real love is ever changing but always the same in the end. Real love... oh, real love..._

After the water purification from the priest, all the people witnessing and taking part in the ceremony bowed to the gods, making way for the main ritual and the main moment of the whole set up, the Saishu Ichirei. The priest presented the kensen in an excruciatingly slow way, making everyone long for the moment the offering to the gods would allow the new couple, completely purified, to obtain patronage and safety for their future together.

When after these gestures, all executed in the most stunning silence and with the ultimate, most elegant theatricality, the Shinto priest started to read the “Norito” aloud to the god, Akiteru and Kei’s mum started to weep.  
Kei immediately tried to save the day, by taking his mum’s hand in his, and squeezing it.  
As his mother looked at him, she found force and relief.  
There was such a firm gentleness in everything Kei looked like that day, that she forced calmness upon herself, and she succeeded at stopping her eyes from watering down any more.  
The Norito-promised lifetime long happiness would not be denied in the following years to such a well matched couple, thought at the same time Kei and his mum.

When the time came for the bride and the groom to drink the sacred sake from the same glass three times in order to exchange their marital vows, it was clear to all the people witnessing them that the way their eyes were fixed into one another claimed the gods had already knotted their lives together well before they had indulged in the requested nectar (which is believed to hold the most powerful of kami’s blessings)... and when it showed how not only Akiteru, but also Saeko were to take a personal oath in front of the gods (while for the Seishi Soujo, it is generally only the groom who has the incumbency, although brides are pushed to do that as well more in recent years), no one of the guests attending could call themselves surprised by the lovely orchestrated choice.

Kei looked at the faces of his family to break the sense of ultimatum the atmosphere was holding for his always insecure spirit, then looked at his senpai Tanaka, who was trying so hard to not cry like an infant, he felt for the first, and probably last time in his life, a sincere impulse to go over to him and squeeze his cheeks to comfort him.

He realized he was not the only one unable to deal with the power of that moment, and that consciousness provided him true solace.

Tanaka Ryuunosuke loved his sister like no other, and for him it had to be a special, yet cruel day in some aspects to let her leave alongside another man for the rest of her life.

Luckily for Tanaka, the Mikomai no houten, the shine maidens dance to please the gods and make them bless the couple and their families, started immediately after the Seishi Soujo and promptly claimed everybody’s attention, as the dancer was pretty extraordinary and captivating, so much that the atmosphere stopped to be unbearable for Saeko’s younger brother, rapidly enamored with the dancer’s aura and looks.

There wasn’t much left of the ritual, and Kei acknowledged with pleasure it would be all over quickly from there onwards.  
The cherry petals had fallen more from the branches, and the Sun was climbing up and up; it was really a fine day and the chirping of birds couldn’t seem to stop, despite being full morning by then.

 _Probably these birds are starting to craft their nests or are already in the middle of reproductive season... All these chants seem to never end?_ thought Kei, for a moment envious also of the naturalistic simplicity of a birds’ life.

Shaken into his pants, put back in check at the hearing of the Tamagushi offering to the gods from the newlyweds, Kei smiled, mostly ignored as everyone’s eyes were on the wedded couple. They had written a very beautiful prayer for advocating to their union the benevolence and the support of the deities, and although none of their words had sounded overly sugary, there was no denying their vows and gratefulness were as passionate as they were sincere and pure.

As Akiteru and Saeko finished with their preaching, they bowed twice, clapped twice their hands, then bowed once again in their final expression of endless gratitude to the kami and the gods.  
A gentle and caressing breeze came to them, and it seemed like the kami wanted to cheer them back with it.

Before the rituals came to their conclusion, it was due that each member of the two families, who had come up to the temple that day as separate houses, and who would be coming down from it as an unique entity through a newly sealed bond, had to drink the same sacred sake the couple had tasted already, to spread the newfound link and fortify it through the divine power of the holy beverage.

Tsukishima feared for his sanity and life when, drinking his own part of the sake, he saw with the corner of his eye that Tanaka San had clearly zoomed on him to judge how well he would react to the alcoholic enhancement.

He felt even stranger once he put his glass down, only to face said former senpai of his smiling stupidly in his direction, certainly proud from there onwards they would be some kind of acquired brothers to one another.

But he couldn’t lose his cool. It was time for the final bow to the gods, the Saishu ippai his mother had wanted to see more than anything else that day: so many souls all interested and keen in wishing her firstborn and his new wife a life plenty of every joy.

There was no way he would have bowed less than perfectly then, and after all, to have Tanaka San as “almost brother” wasn’t a bad thing.  
But he would have never said it out loud, of course. He would have tried to forget he even had come to _think_ it after that day...

Relieved once he had seen Hinata do it all fine, and realizing the entire ceremony at the shrine had gone without an itch, Kei finally relaxed.  
The voice of all the people moving out of the temple and heading back to the parking began to come softened at his ears, and a sense of levity possessed leisurely the whole of him.  
He was feeling almost like at the end of a well played and exhausting, yet satisfying, volleyball game.

“Kei...ehi, Kei!”

He thought he had heard _his voice_ calling him from his back, but it couldn’t be...  
he wasn’t there, so...

And in fact, Tadashi, who was the one calling him out, wasn’t shouting “Kei”, but “Tsukki”, as usual... 

_Maybe the wind and the chirping birds have fooled me..._

“Tsukki... do you know exactly where the banquet hall is located?”

Tsukishima looked at his best friend with a startled face. Was Yamaguchi planning to drive himself? Didn’t all the team come by bus?

“You don’t have the driving license, so... why do you wanna know?”

“It’s not... for me... we are on the bus you know...”

“I do know of course... then why are you asking me this?”

“Because Hinata got a text from Kageyama... he’s on his way to Sendai by bullet train and he might come there, if he’s still allowed to...”

Kei thought the chirping of the birds had become a roaring screeching of an army of tengu announcing a tsunami.

“What?”

Yamaguchi and Yachi looked at their friend like they were suddenly speaking two very different languages.

“Kageyama kun was freed from his duties this early morning. He wrote to Hinata that he would love to wish personally to Akiteru San and Saeko San the best future ahead...”

“But... the banquet hall... it’s formal attire only... and... he would need to take a taxi?”

Yamaguchi and Yachi looked at one another, puzzled.

“Well, of course Tsukki. He knows? And he allegedly said to Hinata he has his own goshuugi to bring, beside the one the whole team has prepared for the newlyweds...”

Tsukishima ears had stopped to hear. His head was like a shell resounding and his chest had started to feel heavier, way heavier than it used to.

_He comes._

“Tsukki? Are you still with us?”

A head shake and Tsukishima answered, with a voice he was hoping would have sounded nothing different than its usual to his friends, giving them the details of the banquet hall they were about to get to.

“Do you want to text Kageyama yourself, Tsukki?”

The slight panic Tsukishima could easily decode in himself made him turn quickly towards his family, leaving Yamaguchi to deal with the rest of the matter:

“Nah, I have to take care of my mum, who’s way too emotional right now... send you the details to our King... or transfer them to Hinata, or whatever. As long as he comes dressed like he shall, of course he’s welcomed there. Akiteru will be happy to see him, and so will be Saeko...”

_King... Comes..._

And moving fast to sustain his mother who was still crying of emotion in front of their car, Tsukishima disappeared into the vehicle.

“Tadashi... is he... okay?”

Yamaguchi smiled a little.

“Yes. Yes I really think he is, Hitoka. Let’s go back to the bus... others are surely be waiting for us...”

And righting their hands together again the two young lovers swiftly joined the rest of Karasuno, ready to move to the banquet hall where the first post wedding reception was about to take place.

The hotel chosen for the banquet was the Saryo Souen, a luxury hotel made of traditional looking buildings all fit into a stunning and maniacally maintained Japanese garden, with water ponds and small rivers and zen corners the most appreciated of which was the one presenting a centuries old huge cherry tree, which was still in full bloom that day.

It had been Kei the one who had suggested it for the occasion, and his reason for it had been that the bosses of Akiteru would have been the most pleased about the choice.

“The banquet is made especially for the bosses and coworkers, right? Akiteru’s moving up his company ranks well, but to have the reception in a place where his bosses may have a chance of connection with even bigger biz types, may not come unconsidered in a while...”

Akiteru had objected that it would have been really expensive to hold the reception there, but at that their mother had immediately replied there were no better ways to spend money than to assure her son a better and brighter future.

“Mum... this _can’t_ assure me a thing...”

“Right. But bro, this is just a chance to empower you in your bosses’ eyes. It’s true that it’s gonna be only your work which will make you move on... but since we have still to spend quite a lot in this reception... why don’t we try to make it memorable, and make your name pop up better in your bosses’ minds whenever they will have to judge how well you work?”

Akiteru had looked at his brother then, and noticing how smartly he could seize on opportunities, he had flat out confessed he was scaring the hell out of him with his brain.

Kei had glowed at that.  
He loved to appear - as he was indeed that way - as a strategist no one would have dared to mess up with.

“Whooooo-aaahhhh!!!!”

Hinata stepped into the hall of the hotel keeping his head up, mesmerized by the woodwork the ceiling of it had exposed for the guests to see.  
The place was minimally, yet very expensively furnished and there was the typical flair of old Japanese master houses well offered to every visitor coming in.

Everything had earthly tones and since the space was open over the gardens, which were surrounding every single section of the complex, those colors of the ground and terrain were matched by the outside lavishness of leaves of many types, and by the blue the clear sky and the pure waters around were bringing along.

“It’s... beautiful...”

The Receptionists at the desk controlled their papers.

“Oh, it’s the massive wedding reception... how many are the people? And... there are lots of young guys? They look like a team of players. They are quite tall, aren’t they?”

“I think they are some high school’s volleyball team...”

“Aren’t they the Karasuno Crows?”

“Karasuno?”

“Yeah... my nephew, who goes to Date Tech High played against them... I think I can name a couple of them, like the tall guy with glasses, over there... whom I think may be the brother of the groom actually... and that short redhead who keeps looking everywhere like it’s the first time he sees anything...”

“That little kid plays volleyball?”

“He does. You’d be shocked seeing him when he flies from ground, and spikes impossible balls...”

“Really?”

“Really: I saw a couple of their games... and... there’s also another kid there... he is their setter, and is by far the best player I have ever seen playing on a court... let me find him... I thought he was the one raven haired down there on the right, but he’s taller and bulkier than that one...”

“Ehi... stop looking at them... the giant blonde is coming here... position!”

And the three receptionists stopped speaking and moving, waiting for Tsukishima to reach their desk.

“Excuse me, sir... We are waiting for one late person to come reaching us... he must have certainly his personal invite on him, but he’s coming from Tokyo and...” _and he’s mostly stupid in his life so he has certainly lost the envelope with the invitation somewhere, or maybe he hasn’t taken it with himself in Tokyo..._ “...he might come at you asking where we are. Please... could you note his name down, so that even if he has not his invitation ready, you can move him to our banquet?”

The receptionist who was in front of Tsukishima nodded, smiling politely at the young guy, who seemed nervous.

“But of course. The banquet is the Tsukishima and Tanaka one, isn’t it?”

“Precisely.”

“Let me have this late guest name then, so that you all can move in your destined hall... Is this guest a family member or one of the colleagues?”

Tsukishima hesitated.

“He is... one of the volleyball guests.”

The other two receptionists tried to look composed. The one who was handling the request, instead, the one who had actually guessed the excited guys in the hall were Karasuno players, wore a big smile to finish helping Kei out:

“Amazing. And his name is?”

“Kageyama Tobio.”

Tsukishima tried not to fall for the emotional rush each letter of that name pronounced was having him feel, but he failed.  
His cheeks rosed.  
And conscious of it, his head fell down, but not enough to disguise his reaction, since he was way taller than the Receptionist in front of him.

“Oh, alright then. I know what he looks like. You may go your way, Mr. Tsukishima, and as soon as I spot your teammate, be assured I will bring him there where all of you are.”

Tsukishima was so flustered he didn’t even registered how familiar with the team that Receptionist seemed to be.  
He just bowed and thanked him, and quickly moved himself and the whole of his team to the building which was meant to host the banquet.

_He comes. Shit... Gotta stop freaking out... Didn’t I wish for this the most?_

The banquet hall was set in one of the biggest “guest houses” of the lot the hotel was offering for those kind of occasions.  
A bit secluded in the main garden, wetted on two sides by a wonderfully wide and well placed koi pond and a pair of massive red maples guarding the side entrance, it had been arranged with tables in circles around the married couple, progressively distanced from them in scattered bunches.  
Following the dictate of the rules for marital banquets the people who were sitting nearer to the newlyweds had to be their bosses and colleagues, while family people had to take the places the farthest away from them.

Since the Karasuno Volleyball team was neither family nor working acquaintances, the disposition of the tables for them had been decided to be in the middle of the hall, and Kei and Ryuunosuke, who were at once team members (in full or past capacity) and family people had to sit at the furthest from the married couple, at the conjunction of their tables with the ones the family members had to fill up, which were even more detached from Saeko and Akiteru.

Considering Kageyama would have joined last, also his place was put in the same distance as the ones Tanaka and Tsukishima had.

The one place in between the two, to be more precise.

“Do you still tense, Tsukishima kun?”

Asked Tanaka observing how the younger guy was still completely edgy in his chair, despite the dishes having already started to be presented at each table, in between various toasts to their brother and sister, and all other people around them had started to relax and chat like the time for formalities had finally expired.

“Eh? No... well... not anymore?”

Tanaka looked at him, trying hard to believe his words. 

“If you say so... well, trust me, it’s worst to handle a sister than a brother, man...”

Tsukishima had always had trouble at following the swift approaches of his senpai. They were very much opposite in attitude and mood, even though one thing he had ways appreciated in Ryuunosuke was his direct and loyal spirit, constantly accompanied by a natural good natured disposition towards his kouhais, despite at first he had always loved to look like the toughest and most unapproachable of guys.  
If he was trying to make him loosen up, it had to be a given how much he must have looked stiff and distant.

“I guess.”

Tsukishima didn’t want to lie. He decided to answer with the best honest sentence, even though Tanaka had failed to grasp the reason behind his agitation and absentmind-ness.

Tanaka erupted in one of his well known laugh, patting with energy his former teammate’s back and making him cough like he were to spit a lung off of his mouth.

“Don’t mind, don’t mind! It’s not like they will disappear from our lives! I mean, they still live nearby? It’s not like they transfer to Tokyo or anything? Ahahahah!”

Tsukishima this time choked and not because he was still patted too strongly by Tanaka.

“Let’s cheer our guys won’t we, Tsukishima? Let’s raise our glasses...” Kei was literally pulled up by his shorter wingman and forced to fill his glass with a liquid of a very suspicious and probably not fit for teenagers browny color “...and call one up for my Saeko and her cool and great husband, Akiteru Tsukishima San!”

Like a small and engineless boat which cannot but follow the track of a big tide, Kei went into the ruckus of all of his teammates cheering to his brother and his sister-in-law, but it was like all sounds were smaller in his ears, and all motions were slower in his eyes.  
He was happy... He was.  
He was.  
But that happiness was still incomplete...

_The hell... where are you, damnit..._

As the atmosphere had quieted, for a new set of trails with new food had been introduced in the hall, and everybody had sat down again to taste it, Tsukishima tried to guess what time could have been by then.

_This way, you won’t even get a chance to eat, stupid King..._

Clicking his tongue a bit, he looked in front of him, to observe his teammates enjoying the delicious dishes the banquet had prepared for them. Directly in front of his place were Saizo and Tojo **NOTE B** , and he passed from looking the first to the other and back to Kyouya, who was every day more looking like a mini King, but without the imposing aura of the resident sovereign of Karasuno, nor the indescribable beauty of his cold and marvelous eyes. Quite lost in the comparison, Tsukishima saw the face of Kyouya Saizo color itself with excitement and delight, his very angular eyes first widen, then squeeze in an overjoyed testifying of euphoria, until his whole persona shoot up from his chair to wave at somebody who had to be just behind Tsukishima’s back.

Kei’s heart got it even before his senses could grasp any word out of Saizo’s mouth.

“Kageyama senpai!”

Suddenly everyone at the Karasuno’s table turned in the direction of Saizo’s eyes, overlooking the face of Ryoma Tojo which was a strange mix between annoyance and murdering thirst.

“Finally, Bakayama!” Shouted Hinata, galloping out of his chair to reach Kageyama, who had to be predictably embarrassed in being the guest who had to stop the festivities by coming late at a party.

The old Kageyama, the terrible at sociality Kageyama who could not even give or receive high fives during game for the complete ignorance he had regarding human interactions, probably would have just stood in the middle of the banquet hall trying to guess what he was supposed to do once stepped into it. **NOTE 1**

Not this Kageyama, even though this Kageyama was only partially accustomed with the roots of social conventions and habits.

“I am sorry to interrupt you all with my bad timing...” said the raven haired guy who had entered the banquet hall wearing a beautiful dark blue suit in the Korean style, with a buttoned collar in contrast fabric made of worn out silk, perfectly fitting his wide shoulders and highlighting the narrowness of his hips with its fashionable length “... I hope you all can continue to celebrate this happy day which has seen two of the people I consider best in the world tie their lives together forever, and forgive my presence, which is a thing only because I couldn’t miss the chance to wish these two happiness forever in person.”

And saying that, Kageyama had moved towards the table of the newly weds, holding a decorated envelope made of rice paper and ribboned in taffeta tapes, with golden buttons fixing the extremities together to shape them as a delicate butterfly shaped pom pom.

“Please, Saeko San, Akiteru San... accept this from me as a thank you for having invited me to share such a beautiful day for you two and your beloveds.”

Finishing his saying, handing his gift to the couple, Kageyama bowed.

_You bow better than anyone I know... which is so ironic, considering you are a King after all..._

“Kageyama kun... it’s our pleasure to have you here as well. We are glad you could make it in time for the festivities at least... we hope to have not caused you any inconvenience...” said Saeko as she took Kageyama’s goshuugi in her hands “... and we hope you can have all the possible fun with us today! Thank you for coming!”

And with a toast to the Karasuno setter, who could then move to his assigned place, the banquet rolled back in action.

Ennoshita and Sawamura greeted their former setter at their table complimenting him for the beautiful speech he had just offered to the celebrated couple.  
Kageyama blushed a bit and averting his eyes from theirs, as he was keeping getting embarrassed if elders he had great esteem for demonstrated consideration and praise in reversal, he explained he had been trained hard that morning by Oikawa Tooru in what he would be saying once arrived at the reception.  
The fact he could be so open about such a thing was really his quote as a guy.  
It was not like he had gotten _that much better at being social_ , it was more that after all the years in Karasuno he had evolved to understand what he was supposed to do in certain moments, but being clearly conscious sociality would never be a strong point of his, he had also gained the ability of finding the ones better suited to give him instructions on the matter, without feeling any diminished in his ego due to this habit.  
In many ways, his two former captains had helped him more than a tad in evolving that much.  
Ennoshita, in particular, had gotten him since his very first days at Karasuno, and if he had to think about the person whom he had gotten first advice from on how to deal with Tsukishima, Chikara had to be that one. **NOTE 2**  
And thinking about Kei... 

“Ehi King... what a fancy suit you’ve got? It’s the way Tokyo people dress?”

Tsukishima _had to attack first_. Otherwise, he would have just given in at his instinct and he would have stared open mouth in the middle of the table, breathless for the way Kageyama had decided to present himself at the reception.  
He was simply gorgeous in his suit.  
He didn’t even look as a teenager anymore.

“Well... this is not mine. I... borrowed it.”

“You didn’t steal it right Bakayama?” Intervened Hinata, all occupied in taking glances at the iridescent quality of the fabric he was dressed with.

“Shut up, dumbass. Do I look like someone who steals? It’s... well: I had no time to find a suit this morning so I got helped by Sakusa San...”

Hinata looked at his partner with inquiring eyes.

“Wait a moment: this cannot be Sakusa’s either? He’s taller than you? Bigger than you?”

Kageyama snorted, while he was trying to fill his plate with whatever food was still available for him to eat.

“He’s not that much bigger than me, you idiot. And this is not his... technically... I borrowed it from his mother’s clothing store...”

Hinata opened eyes and mouth at once, and it looked like his hair suddenly had become even brighter, too:

“Sakusa San has made his mother open a store for you at dawn to allow you to find a fancy suit for today?”

Kageyama looked at Hinata like he couldn’t see why it had to sound so specifically out of the ordinary to have somebody doing such a thing:

“Mmm... yeah? Is it that strange?”

Hinata looked at his setter exasperated.

“It is! Who the hell does something like this? And for someone as grumpy and ungrateful as you?”

Munching on food, Kageyama replied that he was not ungrateful.

“You are! You never thank me for anything!”

“It’s because I never have anything to thank you for...”

To have Kageyama and Hinata quarrel over the most absurd things was the classical Karasuno team setup. All of the players sitting at their table could find in their banter the measure of themselves being just in the right place.  
The familiarity was at a peak exactly when those two were endlessly arguing over the smallest details, and everyone could feel how the two enjoyed to fight because their fights were a way to give one another’s the most important space in their respective team universe.

_This all won’t continue much longer tho... you will soon face no one the way you are used to face Hinata, King..._

The banquet kept going on for a while more, but as it was natural for young guys having to sit mostly to see elaborated food to pass alternatively on a table or another, after a couple of hours the eldest people advised the younger lot to feel free to move already to the second reception place, to avoid boredom and spacing out.

“Oh! So we’ll have another one?”

“Yes, Hinata... Tsukki has organized it at his house. Well, his family has... but he has helped a lot!”

“Yamaguchi... stop it.”

“Sorry, Tsukki! But... is it true?”

“It is. But it’s not like everything has to be known by everyone...”

Moving towards his parents, Tsukishima asked if he could move with his teammates already down to arrive at their house, where the second and more informal reception would have finally send off Saeko and Akiteru later that night.  
Tsukishima’s house was pretty big already, but the family had gotten permit to use the backyard of the neighborhood houses to install gazebos and a little dancing stage to allow the final guests for the party some more freedom than the beautiful, but formal location at the Saryo Souen could have provided.  
After his parents had agreed in letting the team move on its own first, Tsukishima and Tanaka guided to Saeko and Akiteru’s table coach Ukai and Takeda sensei to let them offer to the couple the massive goshuugi Karasuno Volleyball team had prepared for them.

The big envelope was black and orange, made all of silk and tattered with silver and golden inserts. It was really beautiful and weighting and since it was all paper money in it, the sum for the new family had to be quite important.

“Thank you all. We are very happy and honored that you’ve accepted our invitation for today. We will join you later at Tsukishima’s house for the other reception... but before you go, please each one of you, take up from those big baskets your own hikidemono we are pleased to gift you with, as a memory of this amazing day we have lived as a one big family!”

Akiteru’s smile capped off his speech and Ukai and Takeda bowed again at him and at his wife, before leaving the hall and reaching the bus which would have taken them all at Tsukishima’s house, while outside Sendai was beginning to get tinted in the warm colors of the sunset.

The house had been decorated with tasteful and discerning items, to increase the harmony and the feeling of a wedding reception without resulting aggressive or constricting to the guests.  
Bulk paper lanterns of various creamy colors were suspended among the trees and apparently sparse around the home garden were candles and votive lamps, all placed in such a good way people were careful not to move a single one of them to not break the balance.

A number of tables, tiny but solid, were also scattered throughout the open space to allow guests to eat from arranged plates, each single one of which had charms and traditional ornaments on one side or the other, so that when the plates would be emptied, the plate itself would have served as a decorative object and would have not disrupted the beauty of the well thought of set up.

At the left side of the garden, a little stage was furnished with karaoke screens and an audio system ready to let people have their funny dance offs.

“We could have tried to play...”

Tsukishima glanced very surprised at Kageyama, who had casually spoken like that while trying to catch the table with the food he would devour most likely.

“What? No. Not at all. You weren’t here to rehearse and even if you would have been, we suck way too much yet to have an audience...”

Hinata caught their words from their side, and had to have his two cents thrown in the middle:

“I don’t suck? I am great with the guitar... we should have tried it Tsukishima!”

Tempted to take off all the instruments from his garage, to shut those two big mouth guys and ridicule their “talents” in front of all of the guests, Tsukishima silenced them off with the most freezing look and ordered to not even mention the thing to anyone that night.

“Otherwise we’ll be forced to give your horrifying idea a try, and I don’t want to vanish all the kami blessings Saeko and Aki Chan have gotten today with a tragic musical performance from you two. Understood?”

Hinata and Kageyama nodded.  
When their captain _really_ wanted something, he could boss anyone, even them two, around.

At least for a little while.

Hinata and Kageyama moved away from their nervous teammate and started to look out properly for more food, as the latter especially had gotten just minimally satisfied in his always present hunger at the banquet.

“What are you looking for Bakayama?”

“Food…”

“Of course… that was clear... stupid!”

“But there's no meat stuff or the likes? I thought I had seen some roasted pork around here...”

“There was… I sniffed its delicious smell as well! But maybe others got on it already? I don’t think there will be much meat based stuff because it seems some in Tsukishima's family there are vegetarians or something…”

“Akiteru San… vegetarian?”

“No, not him… I think…”

“Oi… Kei!” And partying slightly from Hinata, Kageyama jerked Tsukishima’s arm to make him stop by his side again.

“King…”

“Is your brother a vegetarian?”

“Uh?”

“This… no meat snacks buffet… I mean…”

“No he’s not… even though we don't eat much meat in our household…”

“This explain you being scrawny and bony even though your shoulders are wide and you are tall…”

“Why I feel judged by the last one I’d like to be from?”

“I am not judging anyone. It’s just… Idon’t get this vegetarian thing. I mean... I get people loving animals and not wanting to eat them but… in a way… aren't vegetables living creatures too? Isn't it as cruel to kill them and eat them? I mean… just because they don't have a face or articulate joints… doesn't it make as egotistical and… _bad_ to think of their existence so much inferior to ours that we feel entitled to eat them with no second thoughts?”

Tsukishima stood stoned in the middle of his garden, bewildered by the latest of Kageyama’s theories.  
Because he would share at times some weird, truly weird ones if in the mood.

“Wow… this sounds… awkwardly… philosophical?”

“Uh?”

“For real, King… sometimes… you just are… incredibly full of surprises…”

Kageyama was too hungry to try to discuss with his captain if he were serious or if he was just mocking him once more, so he opted for giving him a normal answer, and hope for the best:

“I am not just a volleyball idiot, you know...”

“This isn’t for you to judge...”

Finally finding, thanx to Kei’s impulse, the plates with the meat based snacks and appetizers, Kageyama filled up his plate and moved to sat in a quieter corner of the garden, which was completely filled up by all the guests who were meant to take part at the second reception.  
The garden and the house were resounding of joy and chants and bursting up with color and lights.  
Kei sat beside Kageyama on a rock shaped as a kind of chair he had always liked since he had been a little kid.  
He had faked to fill somehow his own plate with fruit snacks but as soon as they had sat down, he had placed it near a bush to neglect it completely.

“It is. I can say that I am not just a volleyball idiot, though I can’t see what would be bad with being it, either. By the way, do you know where Akiteru San and Saeko San will travel for their honeymoon?”

“Fiji islands. They want to relax and get tanned and have not a care in the world for ten days.” Said Tsukishima, with a clear undertone of envy, as he was imagining himself surrounded only by an opalescent tropical sea and not much else.

Kageyama looked pensive.  
Tsukishima immediately thought he had no concept of where Fiji Islands had to be.  
Instead he surged suddenly and full of curiosity, which was a rare sight in him unless on a sport radar, he began to question his captain again.  
Tsukishima had actually witnessed this side of Kageyama more than once, because during their study sessions he would randomly get intrigued by the most unsuspected conjectures.

“Why do you call it honeymoon? It's not like there's honey over there…”

_What… the heck, King? Are you stupid for real?_

“It's metaphorical, of course. Are you _this thick_?

“Yeah, I thought it might be there, but still… why? Those two things… don't really fit at all?”

“Go read a book and find it yourself…”

“But you sound like you know the reason already so if you tell me I’ll reach my goal sooner…”

“Google it.”

“Don't want to use the phone now. Got too little credit after this Tokyo trip. And I hate queries and you know it…”

“If you had to know anything about volley you would have already googled it though…”

“I like to know also things that are not volleyball…”

“Oh, really?”

“Really. And right now I absolutely want to know why people have thought that honey and moon could work together to express a concept such as honeymoon…”

“You… philosophical King… sometimes you are impossible to endure…”

“I thought for you I am always impossible to endure, so I am glad I got better in your eyes. So?”

“So what?”

“I’m still waiting. Explain this to me, and I will stop bothering you…”

And Kei started to explain to Kageyama how the convention in a great number of ancient cultures was that the first month of a marriage had to be the sweetest, because it’s when the conjunctions between the married lovers are the newest and the purest.

“So Moon as a substitute for month?”

“Yeah. But it’s also a concept that has to do with the fact that a lot of marriages especially in the past centuries were celebrated in the warmest months, when bees honey was ripe and cured to be harvested from hives or from the wild which made it the sweetest time of the year. The two concepts were fitting together and there it sprouted the honeymoon saying...”

“You really do know everything...”

“I don’t. It’s that unlike you I try to read a lot more than just Volley Month Magazine...”

“Still...”

“Still what?”

“I like the idea of Moon being golden and all honey-sh... rather than just think of a Month that way.”

“Uh?”

“I don’t care if you don’t agree, that’s it.”

_It’s not that I don’t agree... it’s just... absurd? You make no sense? You speak sometimes like a retarded three years old?_

As the explanation concluded, Kageyama seemed to hesitate, trying to say something else, then suddenly cutting his own breath intentionally.  
There weren’t so many chances for people to catch indecision off of him, and Tsukishima knew him all too well by then to mistake his faint stuttering and gulping for anything natural.  
Pushed by his curiosity, eager to find maybe a tiny reason to mock him for, he was presented instead with a knife so feral and ready to twist into his core, he cursed mentally himself for having tried to act bullishly.

Kageyama in fact, sighing into the night, told him he wouldn’t be playing the incoming Inter High tournament, and that they had quickly to train Saizo kun to allow Karasuno to qualify even without him playing.

Kageyama had spoken faster than his late usual way, much more similarly in tone and rhythm to his starting days with the team; he looked like he wanted to erase reality while he was speaking, knowing he couldn’t, but looking very conflicted out of his speech.

“You... can’t play... because?”

“The FIVB Volley Nation League starts soon... and...”

Tsukishima paled. Deep inside himself he had always known the astonishing talent for volley Kageyama had was not something kids his age were supposed to master, but for a very egotistical reason he had tried to hush that concept under a rug swept, like he could protect Karasuno and its special set up at least for some more months with his denial.

The way he _had_ to intervene directly into Kageyama’s frail speech was just to stop his heart from bursting, and his face to flare up:

“Are you kidding me? They want you to play already with the National regular Team? Bypassing Juniores one?”

Kageyama looked at his captain, with wide eyes. In his teammate surprise, Tsukishima got awareness of his own state: he had to sound screechy and bossy, and that wasn’t his wish nor his will. But somehow he hadn’t been able to convey more politely his question.

Though he knew the reason for it, he kept hoping Kageyama would never understand why instead.

“Well... no. That’d be really absurd wouldn’t it? No...”

A trace of relief colored Tsukishima back to himself.

“Oh. Well... ok then... So... why do you say you won’t be playing the Inter High with us?”

Kageyama inspired deeply. His whole upper body mounting and puffing, and Tsukishima thought that elegant suit was making his wide shoulders look even wider, he thought that dressed up like he was, he didn’t look quite like a dorky boy anymore...

“Even if I won’t be there to play, the head coaches of the National Teams want to bring along Team A me, Sakusa San, Ushijima San, Oikawa San, Atsumu San and Komori San to let us get accustomed to the flair of International Competitions, and to allow us to grow along the main team, in provisional... foresight. They called it so...”

For a tiny second, Tsukishima wanted to retort and ask him confirmation he had the faintest idea what _provisional foresight_ could mean, but he didn’t say a word, realizing he was about to do it not because he wanted to question Kageyama’s vocabulary, but because he wanted to set his world on fire, just for vengeance.

Like a kid, throwing a fit because he realizes world spins out of his own desires more often than not, and having no power against such a state of things, he cannot find anything else to do but cry and rage, Tsukishima was about to blame the most innocent person for something he should have been proud along him for.  
And he would have loved to feel the pride, there and then, instead than jealousy.  
Jealousy not towards his vice captain...

Tsukishima was feeling jealous _because there would be other people along Kageyama in that adventure, and not him_.

“Kei... are you... ok?”

Tsukishima shook up. Kageyama’s eyes were clearly concerned, and he knew he was behaving strangely enough for him to wonder if he was ready to shrug him off and leave.  
He would have probably done it, in their past.  
But not anymore.

“Yeah. It’s all fine, Your Majesty...”

Kageyama frowned back into his typical expression; Tsukishima liked it. A frowning King was the best to make him feel everything was alright, and nothing was going to change, even though it was, for a while more.

“C’mon, King, you shall be proud of your achievement? You are talking like you regret to be so good you will travel the world in a month, alongside the only team you want to play for?”

_Ouch. I’ve done it. What the hell I am saying?_

Kageyama lowered his head. His fringe all over his eyes, preventing the visibility of them.  
The tension freezing his body.  
His hands, clutching.

“You know this isn’t true, Kei. You know I won’t be happy to leave you guys playing without me for over a month... especially... _this one month_...”

Tsukishima knew.

Tsukishima knew it all too well.

But he hadn’t been able to stop his aching and wounded heart to get control of his mouth, nevertheless.

“Please, don’t mind me. I know it. It’s that it’s very sudden...”

“It is. Actually they told us yesterday night, casually, as we were eating with the team after our last training. Actually... I wanted to tell you guys... this... so immediately that I am here today mostly for it. I mean... I am also happy to have been able to greet your brother and Saeko San... but the main reason I rushed here from Tokyo as soon as I could... was that I had to tell you this straight...”

_Oh, King... why so eager? Why so eager to break my heart?_

“Tomorrow would have worked just the same tho...”

“Maybe. Probably... But... I knew I wouldn’t have slept at all before telling you this. And these are not stuffs I can send texts for...”

“Can’t you?”

Kageyama put his hands over his face. His long, beautiful fingers getting into his lateral tufts of silky black hair, freeing his temples as they moved all the way to grab his own skull, palms on his cheeks, squeezing, and then moving away to get back down at the sides of his body.

“No. I couldn’t _text_ you something like this... I needed to tell you face to face. I tried to tell the guys as well... before... but...”

“...But you didn’t want to ruin their moods.”

“Yeah. As soon as I saw that dumbass smiling and telling me in ten seconds all that I had missed of the ceremony... I realized I couldn’t ruin nor his, nor anybody else’s mood today...”

“But you don’t have the same tact towards me...”

Kageyama chuckled a tiny bit.

“You are our captain... You’re not like the others, you know...” then, seriously fixing his eyes seizing into Kei’s, he finished his reasoning “... and I really couldn’t have slept at all if I hadn’t shared this with you immediately.”

Tsukishima had to shy his face away. Luckily the night was helping him, disguising his skin shades and making them all a little darker, a little grey-er...

Bless the darkness and his chance to hide his emotional outpourings, and bless his King’s dense and limited perception of human weaknesses unless on a volley court.

“Thank you very much... I guess now _you will sleep_ , but I won’t?”

Kageyama wore then a quieted expression, like he had pulled off a heavy weight from his own chest, and replied solemnly, and funnily in a child mannerism that at that point, they both wouldn’t have slept, if any, but at least they would have tried to find together a solution for the impromptu trouble Karasuno had to face.

“It’s not like I can magically duplicate you, King... what kind of solution do you expect me to come up with?”

Kageyama’s voice had the utmost stony assurance to it:

“You don’t need magics, Kei. And it’s as certain as yours and my name that you will find the best possible solution for this. I have not a single doubt you will.”

Tsukishima marveled for one final time at the clarity of his vice captain’s faith in him.  
Kageyama had always had this straightforward quality about himself and where at first it had been a constant bother to his days, the more they had learnt to deal with one another, the more he had to realize in Kageyama’s eyes he was some sort of Brain Authority and a fantastic resource.

“The pressure you put on people is irritating, King...” **NOTE 3**

“Is it? But I know you. And you know me by now... I put on people only the pressure I am sure they can handle. So... once more... help me out, Kei. Help us out and let’s find a way to allow Karasuno his path, even if temporarily without me.”

_Temporarily..._

“What if Saizo kun will become irreplaceable?”

_Show me how you care about us, King..._

“Come again?”

_Say it... Be at your best with me..._

“Yeah... what if our B plan works so well you will come back from your National time, just to find out Kyouya kun has stolen your starting place for good?”

“First, let’s mold Kyouya kun into the great starting setter he can be. Then... don’t worry, Kei: there is no way I won’t claim back my place in the team as soon as I get back in Karasuno’s ranks...”

“Guess it can’t be helped then...”

“It can’t, exactly.”

For a solid minute, the two guys remained silently near one another, face at the Moon, silenced and pondering.  
As a ruffle of wind moved the foliage more violently, causing a stronger sound enveloping them together, Tsukishima realized one more thing out of what Kageyama had shared with him.

“King... beside the fact you won’t be playing with us for a while...”

Kageyama seemed curious about Tsukishima’s question, enough to completely shift his body to face him more comfortably.

“What about it?”

“How will you study if you go all around the world?”

Kageyama’s face distorted in a pained mask. Tsukishima smirked.

_Touché, my King..._

“Well... I will have... tutorage from the other guys... I suppose...”

Tsukishima became completely serious.

“Don’t dare to waste all of our progresses with your grades just because you will live and breathe volley for 50 days straight, am I clear enough? Look, I wouldn’t ever trust you again if once you come back you won’t kill the entrance tests and all the mock exams, ok?”

They had worked for months in weekly studying sessions to allow Kageyama to develop his own style of learning things. Fujita sensei, their homeroom teacher, had often given to Kageyama further material to study over, to train his stunning visual memory skill better, and Tsukishima, with his flawless attitude at studying _and_ teaching, had conspicuously pushed the raven haired boy at meeting all of their class targets, with an unimaginable patience for his often clumsy setter.

“I will make it. And by the way... even when I will be away... if you agree and have time and will to do it of course... I can still solve your tests, too, if you can send them to me in mail?”

“But you never look at your mails...”

“I will. Those days I will. So, if you want to...”

“Maybe I will.”

“Okay. That’d be great.”

“Okay.”

“Okay...”

The night was getting deeper, and the fatigue out of a full day was starting to take its toll on the teenage boys, more that they would have liked to admit.  
Suddenly, the plan Kageyama had thought of, to start immediately to put down with Tsukishima some special training they would have submitted the team to in hope to develop a quick chemistry among the players with Saizo Kyouya in the setting role, seemed too grand.

To plan good things, you gotta have a ready brain, and an even readier heart, of which none can be, if your eyes and sense start to numb themselves shielded by a sleeping need.

Too bad, because that April night seemed just so perfect, in so many ways, that he had thought even sleeping could have been a bad way to waste the best part of it.

And sure Kageyama was one who loved a good sleep.

“You know, Kei?”

“What now…”

“Moon tonight is astonishing. It's beautiful to look at it. It's like… magic…”

“Are you moonstruck?”

“It may be. I rarely pull all nighters, since I try to get the right amount of sleep at the right times…”

“So impeccably ethic, aren't you…”

“Athletes must take care of their bodies…”

“But of course…”

“Anyway… do you really think I’m a philosopher?”

“Eh? No… Nope! When did I say I do?”

“Earlier?”

“In your dreams. Didn't say anything like that.”

“So you think I got some philosopher skill…”

“Are you dumber than I think? I said I don't!”

Kageyama’s voice was low and slow. Tsukishima couldn’t get enough of that voice , its coarse tone, and the shivers it was making him feel. Tsukishima wished that night would never end.

“Whatever. Still… I might actually like philosophy. And from what I got, not all philosophers were that great, though they were considered philosophical thinkers. I mean… some of those were _really_ out there, don't you agree?”

“Well… possibly? People can think about the most hideous or absurd things…”

“More than that… I was implying how many of them were just seeing things their own way, and were never afraid to state them, regardless if what they were seeing was considered good or bad. They were… out there on their own, essentially. A bit like… well, I think I can relate to that. I like the fact people have existed who were like that and that they could also be called philosophers, rather than nut heads…”

“Yeah, but look… philosophers are smart. While you are an idiot. It true that you can concentrate and memorize anything better than us peasants, but in the end… that doesn't make you as smart as philosophers are requested to be…”

_Though I don't really think these words I am telling him, just to ignite a bad reaction in him…_

“I know, I know that I am pretty stupid in general but… what if I could use my talent in memorizing and concentrating for learning philosophy in College? Okay, don't say it… it's true that I am not fit for heavy stuff in academics but I don't dislike the idea of spending four years studying that?”

“Are you… serious?”

“Totally. Out of all the stuff I collected at Itachiyama these days, no other Course has interested me beside that one…”

“But… philosophy is a major degree…”

“Yeah. It's sure a tough one, I do realize it. We’ll see, it's just an idea at the moment… and… what about you? Have you chosen something?”

_I have…_

“No. Not yet…”

“You may do anything. You are that smart, unlike me. There’s nothing you couldn't do…”

It was hard for the two guys to stop talking that night.  
Everyone else was already gone home or fallen asleep inside the house, but not Kageyama and not Kei.  
Sitting side by side, with a plaid over each one of them to fight the chill of the night, which was surprisingly and pleasantly delicate for that period of the year up in the Tohoku region, Karasuno current captain and vice captain seemed not ready to part ways, or to go retiring themselves despite feeling tired.

Because talking sounded especially sweet that night.  
Because talking seemed to ease the underneath agitation of both guys: Kei’s, all trying to downplay the rush of emotions he was currently experiencing so near to the one who was making his heart flutter and crash, and Kageyama’s, who was in need of feeling himself into the emotional environment which had allowed him to blossom as a player and also as a person, just before a new and completely unpredictable chapter was about to start for him.

“What did you guys do during the camp then?”

“We played. A lot.”

“Did you have fun?”

“A lot. You should wreck your ass and move to join me there, you know…”

“Not a chance. I am not good enough.”

“Again with the I am not good enough crap? That's your excuse always right?”

“That's not it.”

“It is. You are not good enough _yet_ because you give up on yourself just that easily you know…”

_Oh, King... you truly have for me a consideration only you can possess. This guy... he’s practically a National player, and he keeps thinking we are somehow the same species..._

“I don’t do it that much anymore, King. And I thank you for your kind words but realize it... there’s an abyss between you and me which is why you are about to travel the world with Japan jerseys on, and I won’t...”

Kageyama’s nose scrunched, and he clearly was about to say something to convince Tsukishima otherwise, but he couldn’t think of his words fast enough, ad the other kept his own trail of spoken thoughts, questioning the setter a bit more:

“What do you think when you play?”

“What do you mean?”

“What's exactly in your mind? What do you see? Is it like we do… or does a genius’ mind work differently?”

“Uh?”

“Don't look at me that murderous way… it’s not just an idea of mine. Genius’ psychology exists. For real…”

“I am not one…”

“You are. It pisses me off when you deny it. So King give me satisfaction and maybe I'll give you more as well…”

“What’s this habit you have to blackmail people? It's very irritating…”

“So?”

Kageyama breathed in. His chest mounting, all tighten up in his dark blue suit, and then coming down, with a tiny sigh:

“I… well… when I play… everything gets calmer. Clearer. Slower. It’s like all my senses embrace the world around me, and I can hold the world around me in the palm of my hand… There is a moment where my impatience, my energy, which can burst and get uncontrolled sometimes...”

“Well, you can get out of control way more often than just _sometimes_ , King...”

“I know...but that’s when _the thing, that thing that Sugawara San calls Flow,_ happens: all the excitement and the pressure I feel, it’s like a big vibration which suddenly can even all else around. And I get able to envision everything so purely and clearly, like I can mold the world...”

“Wow...”

“I don’t know if it makes sense?”

“Now it’s not like you actually explained it _well..._ but it does.”

“When I was younger... when I was in Kitagawa... and also at the start with you guys... I couldn’t often reach that state of evening vibration which could expand fully my senses and perceptions... By then, my impulsivity would often get the best of me and make me spin out of control...”

“Ain’t that true... “

“But... this team... you! Well, you’ve helped me become the player I am supposed to be. Once I started to trust other players... because they also started to trust me... the reaction was... the best thing which has ever happened to me!”

_Always so honest. You are such an idiot, King... saying all this... to me... with those burning eyes... How am I supposed to resist now?_

“And now... are you scared? This FIVB thing... does it make you afraid?”

Kageyama frowned. That was his way of thinking hard and Tsukishima felt flattered of the fact he was trying to question his own self about the interrogative before answering. The Kageyama he knew, was not a person to get afraid in finally touching his only true dream. But Kageyama was also a very self perceptive person, who was always ready to frankly call his own things with their perfect names, no matter if those names were at risk of making him look uncool.

“I am. Not that I can say this is a fear... as there is nothing which I want more than this and you know it... but... I wish I wouldn’t be alone doing it.”

“You are not?”

“Don’t get me wrong... I know it. To have Sakusa San... Oikawa San...”

_Oikawa San, of course... Oh, boy!_

“...and all the guys there... it will be nice and comfortable and I know I am not alone this way but... They are not you, guys. They are not _yet_ my team, and they don’t know and accept me like you guys do.”

“We don’t accept you. We suffer through your moods and requests, and we do it only because accidentally, you’re too good to be denied...”

Kageyama looked at Tsukishima trying to understand if he was joking. One could never tell with him. But his face was soft. His hair were glistening in the night, and his golden eyes behind the glasses had a warmth which couldn’t match any mockery.

“Then why do you put up with me also in class? There... it’s not like I am too good at all...”

Tsukishima chuckled.

“True. You’re barely acceptable and only thanx to me...”

Kageyama looked into the sky. The occasional passage of thin clouds over the Moon was gifting his skin tone with an excess of glam Kei had trouble at managing with discretion.

“See? How will I do, without your aggressive and always pontificating care? You damn Four Eyes...”

Kei adjusted his glasses on his nose, a quick, yet precise and always flawless move which was generally his way to gain seconds before speaking again:

“You should gift us something then... maybe bringing us gifts from the Countries you’ll visit soon, to thank us all for putting up with you?”

“Nope. After all, you all have gotten better thanx to me too.”

“Questionable.”

“Absolutely not.”

The two boys silenced for a while.  
They were tired.  
But they couldn’t accept to stand up and leave their little secluded place in the garden.  
Even silence between them was holding a good meaning that night.  
Even silence was cute and comfortable.

“See, Kei… don't you ever think how everyone we come to meet has a purpose for your life?”

“Eh… no?”

“You don't?”

“What's this King… you haven't even gotten drinks yourself… are you drunk by cold air intake?”

“No, I am not… it's just something I have thought about lately. A bit more… over…”

And he recalled how Alisa told him cards game are like destiny. No matter how they are given, their final output in a game is already distributed from the start. How the cards you will come to play will appear in your hands differently from your choices on them, but how after all they are all established from the start.

“And what does it mean?”

Kageyama looked at Kei's face.

“Think about our first meeting for instance…”

“…How I hated you…”

Said the two with one voice; then they looked at one another, eyes wide… then they bursted in a laugh, with different intentions to it though.

“Well, but now… now I don't. Now I am glad we met.”

Tsukishima's held his own breath while his heart was weighting in his chest and bursting and making his whole being ache, but not in discomfort.

“I hate to say… that… I am kind of glad…too.”

“See? That's what I meant. All encounters may count a lot. You can never guess at first…”

“And…?”

“And that makes life unpredictable and exciting, like a volleyball game. You don't know how it will end from the start, despite being maybe all already set to be in some way. A game… a life… you can always only do your best, and see what comes.”

Tsukishima's couldn't stand his feelings. But it was not the right moment to confess. Despite how beautiful Kageyama was looking that night.  
Despite how his body was vibrating next to his.  
Despite how he was looking at him, so trustful, so calm, so in confidence.  
It was not yet the right time...

“So the King doesn't want anymore to rule everything?”

“It's the opposite. I truly want it instead. But… I am learning to appreciate all that happens meanwhile. So I am not in a painful hurry anymore, I guess.”

“That's good. And hopefully it means you can relax and we can skip our morning run tomorrow… I mean… in 5 hours?”

Kageyama chuckled.

“No way. It means _maybe_ we can start half an hour later…”

“Maybe? You're impossible…”

“I took after a certain captain who's the master at that…”

“I wonder…”

“See… he's a great guy when he's not a salty jerk…”

“Is that s…”

“… and for some strange reason, I can talk with him very naturally of things I never thought I could… It only just happens with smart people I guess…”

Tsukishima saw Kageyama standing up giving him his back, stretching like a kitten after a nap, and turning head to him to lead him back inside, as it was the due time to leave the cold garden, after also the dances had stopped and a lot of guests had started to leave:

“… so thank you Kei, for having cussed me out that first day, and for having made me hate you, then see you, then count on you, and now… thank you for making me trust you.”

Kei stood up himself.

“Likewise, King. You are an encounter I won't ever forget about either, after all.”

And saying that, Kei suppressed his hitching breath, putting his hands over sweating into his pocket, and leading the way back into his house.

“You know King… I don't think you were much different before… you had always spoken your mind, with no fears… like those first times between us… you could admit things which were freaking you out from the start… like hating being fearful of having no team backing you… or when you were admitting you used to fear Oikawa Tooru…” **NOTE 4**

“I still. He keeps freaking me out the most actually…”

“That's not my point. My point is that you have always been able to speak yourself out… so it’s not like I do anything special here, making you able to talk openly with me…”

“You haven't listened to me have you?”

“I have…”

“Then you didn't get me. For me it has never been a matter of truth. I can see and speak only truthful things. I am never scared of what's true. Never I have been…”

“So?”

“What makes me fine in speaking with you… it's that… I don't know why… but it's like lots more of things around me seem… worthy of being spoken of. It's not just anymore the things which are true that I feel like speaking about… sometimes, like earlier… I just feel like opening my mind to you…it will feel right. I… am sorry… if I can't express myself any better but… I hope I made you understand. And that's why I am glad we met. You make my world wider, even if you are an incredibly mean jerk most of times.”

Tsukishima wanted to retort.  
He wanted to have the last word.  
He wanted to erase what he was feeling, but also he wanted to shout all over the world exactly about those feelings.

_To widen your world…_

“You also… somehow have widened my perception of the world.”

“Did I?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

It was not yet time to confess… even though…

“In… some way. Don't be picky. Know you have. One day maybe… I’ll get to say how, when I will have understood it better myself.”

Kageyama didn't look let down by Tsukishima's lack of explanations.

“Like during games, you are always slower aren't you?”

“I’d say more how, like in games, I am more analytical than instinctually quick tho…”

“Whatever…”

“Whatever.”

The two guys had reached the limit of the garden.  
Inside the house, people were all starting to pack and leave, or getting ready for the night in.  
Tsukishima absolutely didn’t want to cut their conversation, so he was clinging at any opportunity to keep going on:

“But I really do appreciate that in these years you’ve stopped screaming like a beast and have developed a calmer approach to everything. I have always found your way to scream beastly...”

“What?”

“I wish you could have seen yourself from outside some times, especially in our first year, King: to a foreign eye, you had to look like a madman...”

Kageyama laughed a little.

“I don’t think what I am saying is fun. You really had that mad flare about you back then...”

“I am not contesting it though. Back then I had trouble dealing with my rage outbursts and zero patience...”

“Truer words never spoken, but still can’t see what’s funny about that...”

“I was remembering that time we started to fight under the net, one of our first times doing it in pair, and Sawamura San scolded us a lot... but we did not stop arguing... Or like when we did it in our first game against Dateko...”

“Oh, that one... Well, it was true back then you didn’t like us peasants to tell you how to toss to our inclinations... There, we got stopped by my newly acquired relative, Ryuunosuke San...” Tsukishima smiled as well, as he kept speaking his mind: “We were terrible kouhai to deal with, guaranteed...” **NOTE 5**

“I think both senpai liked it actually. Tanaka San is the quintessential real man and Sawamura senpai has always appreciated honest and straightforward people. Even though you were not much of it at first...”

“There is a difference between straightforward and rude...”

“Oh, yeah, tell me about it? Like being mean all the time and having fun picking at other people’s weaknesses isn’t rude...”

“Trust me, lot of people are more impressed negatively by someone screaming uselessly than by a calm guy presenting them with an inconvenient truth.”

Kageyama mumbled. Tsukishima could practically see all the motions of his reasonings inside his brain. 

“See? You are always right. That’s why you are a good captain. You understand people very well.”

Tsukishima sighed.

“You are as capable as I am there. It’s incredible you don’t see it.”

“Nah.”

“Do you remember our first sparring match against Karasuno’s Neighborhood Association, King?”

“Yup.”

“I can remember any single word you said to Hinata back then. You really impressed me that day. With a single glance you were able to understand all of Hinata’s thought in a moment. And you had not much experience of him yet. You understood him and nobody could have done it beside you. And that was just the first time. You have always been able to understand all of us. On a court at least... so...” **NOTE 6**

Tsukishima sighed heavier.

“...so in fact you could be a perfect captain as well.”

Kageyama smiled lightly.

“I will in my next team. In this one, I am happy to have you as my own one. You venomous Four Eyes Curse.”

“You insufferably irrational demanding King...”

“My pleasure...”

“Yeah... likewise.”

And setting their incoming morning run at the usual time, they separated. Kageyama took a ride up from Tanaka and went back home, content in his day and in his evening and feeling quite lighter than he had been in recent times.

Tsukishima instead had trouble, back in his room, to decide what that day, and especially _that evening and night_ had left him feeling like.

He had a strange knot inside the pit of his stomach but it wasn’t that bad.  
He could feel it weighting but it wasn’t annoying.  
It was somehow comforting, though he didn’t want to understand especially why he had to think it was not that bad, to sense it.

Putting on his sleeping trousers, he put his earbuds on, to have music of his choice lullaby him to sleep.  
Sliding on his playlist with consummated ease, he stopped at a band name, nodding to himself with sparkling eyes.

Bastille.

He did like them.  
Dan Smith was a fine, fine musician...  
Well, also a pretty guy; a very pretty guy.  
Tall.  
Talented.  
Really, so, so pretty.  
But those were none the reasons he liked Bastille for.  
Tsukishima loved their music, and Dan’s falsetto, so well matching the Japanese liking of melodious high pitched registers.

Decided about sliding to sleep along Bastille songs, Tsukishima put the randomize feature on, and his whole being fell into the magic of music.

“Oh I feel overjoyed  
When you listen to my words  
I see them sinking in  
Oh I see them crawling underneath your skin  
Words are all we have  
We'll be talking  
We'll be talking  
These words are all we have  
We'll be talking  
And I hear you calling in the dead of night  
Oh I hear you calling in the dead of night  
You lean towards despair  
Any given opportunity you're there  
But what is there to gain?  
When you're always falling off the fence that way.  
Words are all we have,  
We'll be talking...  
We'll be talking...  
These words are all we have  
We'll be talking  
And I hear you calling in the dead of night...  
Oh I hear you calling in the dead of night  
Oh I hear you calling in the dead of night...  
Oh I hear you calling in the dead of night  
Ooh...  
Ooh...  
And I hear you calling in the dead of night  
Oh I hear you calling in the dead of night  
Ooh  
Oh I feel overjoyed...  
When you listen to my words”  
Tsukishima writhed.  
As he was listening to the song, a song he had already heard tons of times, it hit him that what it was talking about... could have been _him_ , him _as he had been exactly that evening_.

_“I feel overjoyed when you listen to my words...”_

Oh, if he did.  
They had talked so much, and so well, and under the prettiest of Moons that night...  
And as he had closed eyes, he could see once again how the pure face of the love of his life had changed under the Moon rays affected by what he had been saying to him.  
Kageyama had always been very perceptive to anything he used to say.  
At first, by negative reaction.  
Then, as their time together had taught the both of them more about the other, that reaction had slowly but steady become one of trust and relying.

_You may do anything... You are that smart... there’s nothing you couldn’t do..._

His love sure held him in high regard.  
His own King, always so blunt and open in the stupidest way.

“You’re wrong King. It ain’t true that I can do everything. Because the only thing I want to do scares me to death, and I am too afraid to act on it...”

And with the image of his setter well into his eyes, Kei tried to sleep, hoping regular dreams would have been fair to him after such a dreamy evening and night before them had just passed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Japanese Traditional Shinto Wedding it is a complex ritual full of established and mandatory rules and codes. To have a little idea about it, please refer to this Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinto_wedding . All the terminology and the notes about it in my writing are orthodox. To witness a shinto wedding is an experience to have, guaranteed. :)**
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> ****Ōsaki Hachimangū (大崎八幡宮)** is a Shinto shrine in Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan. The main shrine building (社殿 shaden) has been designated a National Treasure of Japan and as noted in my writing, it has just been recently reopened after renovation and maintenance care.**
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> ****八百万の神　Yaoyorozu no kami** ~ God of Japan., the one(s) people wishing well to a married couple have to address during the shinto ritual. There is a concept of multitudinous gods from ancient times in Japan.  
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>  八百万(Yaoyorozu) is eight million,it is example of that very large number.  
> If the number 8 is used in Japan,it means very large.  
> 8 million in this case refers to the infinite.  
> Yaoyorozu no kami means that God dwells in all things natural.
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> ****Tengu (天狗, "heavenly dog")** are a type of legendary creature found in Japanese folk religion and are also considered a type of Shinto god (kami) or yōkai (supernatural beings). Although they take their name from a dog-like Chinese demon (Tiangou), the tengu were originally thought to take the forms of birds of prey, and they are traditionally depicted with both human and avian characteristics. The earliest tengu were pictured with beaks, but this feature has often been humanized as an unnaturally long nose, which today is widely considered the tengu's defining characteristic in the popular imagination.**
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> ****The gift policy in Japanese weddings** to have a concept about how these things work in Japan, please have a quick read over here: https://www.japanesewords.net/474/wedding-etiquette-in-japan/**
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> ****Saryo Souen Hotel** a real and beautiful stay if you are in the Sendai area.**
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> ****FIVB Volley Nation League** as usual, my fictions are set in real event times. So if you please... follow the games as they are for real about to start in 2018! For the concept of a high schooler being in the ranks of the National Team... actually it has happened FOR REAL, but for the females athletes! Read :) It happened a couple of years ago :) https://www.japantimes.co.jp/sports/2015/04/15/more-sports/volleyball/high-school-student-added-japans-national-volleyball-team/#.WvBuJdOFP_A**
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> ****NOTE A, B:** From my previous fictions in this Universe, note the set ups are coherently developing.**
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> ****NOTE 1-6** Real events in manga and anime when present. All notations come from established canon facts.**


	6. National Times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I, I am a man on fire  
> You, a violent desire
> 
> What a dangerous night to fall in love  
> Don’t you know why we still hide what we’ve become...
> 
> Do you wanna cross the line?  
> We’re running out of time  
> A dangerous night to fall in love...”
> 
> _Thirty Seconds To Mars_ , **Dangerous Night**  
>  ————-

The Sun had just peeked from the horizon line, a fresh pinky dusk stream caressing all the houses on their track way.  
The sounds of all living creatures around them, starting to move in that brand new day, were muted by their own playlists in their ears, a mix Tsukishima had recently changed to match some of his setter’s preferences, to make one list pleasing to the both of them.  
As promised just a few hours before, Kageyama had postponed their running by 40 minutes, but had reduced the length of it just by 20, so they had found themselves in need to fasten their last tranche of performance to be able to get ready in time for school.  
Tsukishima had a particular short breath that morning, but it hadn’t to do with fatigue, despite having not slept soundly the night; his deficiency was coming by the fact that for each time he would look at his running partner, all he would see was going to be the memory of the way that face had looked just hours before, gently luminescent by the moonlight, breathtakingly charming by his side, and not what said face was actually looking like in that moment, puffy and covered in beads of sweat and unnaturally red.  
At each glance towards Kageyama, Tsukishima would hitch his breathing, causing his running a syncopated rhythm pretty unfitting for the purpose he had agreed to wake up so soon for.  
Cursing himself for his own deathbed, Kei exhaled once more, and instead of finding solace in a new intake of air, he felt his lungs burn.  
At that, unexpectedly, Kageyama turned to him, a little bit concerned allegedly:

“Ehi Kei, try to not falter... we’re almost done anyway...”

“I am certainly done, can’t you see? I feel like throwing up actually...”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t eaten any breakfast earlier?”

Tsukishima looked bewildered at Kageyama: “Well... of course not? Yesterday I’ve eaten for the whole week. I couldn’t have pushed myself at anything more than some green tea this morning...”

Kageyama scrunched his nose in disdain, keeping hopping in place to not lose his cardio rate and looking at his running mate, who had stopped moving instead, with a clear air of reproach. Tsukishima truly couldn’t get the basics of a good athletic diet for his dear life : “No mystery you are running like one who has just learnt how to then...”

Tsukishima avoided to retort: the road was finishing and their running was going to do it as well, and there was no point in trying to come up with more excuses, and certainly he could not tell his vice captain the real reason behind his slacking off.  
He wasn’t short on energy. He was short on commons sense of preservation, apparently.  
Partying ways with Kageyama at his house entrance, he observed the silhouette of the setter moving further away to reach his own neighborhood, musing at the perfect pace the other was keeping, and observing fondly the way his running clothes would bend from one side to the other at each new leap, at each new breath, at each new arm swing the ravenette would do in faultless synchronization.

_You don’t even know how beautiful you are..._

Sighing soundly while stepping back into his garden, Tsukishima started to hope that entire day would end in a blink.

“I don’t want to witness Hinata’s face when he’s gonna learn about this all...”

But he knew he had to.  
He knew that day would sum up to be one of the longest in his yet young life.

After their classes, and after their cleaning duties, Kageyama and Tsukishima arrived at practice together, finding their team already in full training mode. It was a grand sight, to witness Karasuno training hard.  
Etsuko Kawasaki had gained experience in the previous weeks and she was helping Yachi and Takeda sensei assigning different routines to all the players, finally feeling more knowledgeable regarding the dynamics of their volleyball club.  
That would not be enough to make her behaving naturally in Kageyama’s presence though. She had still breathing hiccups whenever the setter would change shirts in the same room or in a seeable part of the gym, and that day she almost had a nose bleed once a bare torso titular setter passed her by keeping his shirt in hand and asking for a different one, as the one he had kept was found ripped out.

“Take this, Kageyama kun... it’s one of the old ones Asahi San used to keep in his locker. It shall fit you.”

“Thank you Yachi San. It does.”

Slipping into the shirt, Kageyama reached his teammates and instead of starting setting for them, he halted the practice, asking for attention.

Coach Ukai came by his side, coughing a little before starting a little speech:

“There’s something pretty important I need to tell you guys regarding our team and Kageyama kun. Kageyama... Can I?”

Kageyama nodded at his coach, and a small “yes please” came out of his mouth.

The rest of the players were facing the two, expectant and curious. Takeda sensei took place aside Ukai, on the other side Kageyama had taken his stance instead.

“We will do a special kind of training during this week, and we will also do quite a special one in the incoming Golden Week.”

Everyone’s eyes lit up. Everyone’s eyes, except Kageyama and Tsukishima’s ones.

“Yes! Won’t we go again somewhere to practice for the Golden Week?”

“That’s for a later digression, Hinata...”

“Oh. Sorry coach. I’ll be just listening now. Forgive my manners...”

“Don’t worry, son. We’ll be doing some good training these weeks. But the reason all of this will end up to be quite special and... quite different from other times is that...”

Kageyama decided it had to be his voice saying why all would be very different from before, and it seemed like Ukai was asking also for him to do it, as he was hesitant in concluding his phrase: “...the reason is that I won’t be able to be there with you guys. I won’t be available for playing for the most part of May and June.”

The faces of all Karasuno’s player went stony.  
Hinata growled at Kageyama, irritated beyond words could say: “Aren’t you planning to move to any other team, mh?” **NOTE A**

Kageyama glared at the short spiker, and that calmed Hinata down enough to allow Coach Ukai an explanation:

“No Hinata, of course that ain’t the reason. Kageyama will follow Japan National Team in the FIVB Volley League starting from the second half of May...”

Hinata’s and everyone else’s face became a wide mouth open mask.

“But it’s not like I am gonna play. I am just having the chance to follow the main team as a trainee partner. And along myself, some other out of the Juniores team will get the same chance. This won’t let me play with you in a crucial moment and to counter that we need to quickly make Saizo kun here able to handle the majority of our trademark plays, to not hinder our chances at the Nationals...”

Saizo Kyouya visibly shook, but he got back to himself fast enough to object his doubts at the perspective:

“But... I can’t? No one can replicate... your plays? Kageyama senpai... I can’t...”

Kageyama looked at his kouhai with stubborn yet understanding eyes.

“You most definitely can, Kyouya kun.”

At the sound of his name in Kageyama’s voice, Saizo blushed. But he kept shaking his head at the responsibility of being requested to imitate his worshipped senpai at anything. Kageyama moved a little towards him, and receiving a murdering sight from Tojo, he approached the shorter setter to make him watching his hands into his own ones.

“Your hands and mine are very similar, Kyouya kun. I believe you can do as much as I do, but for doing that you need to believe you can do it in your own way. And that your own way will be as good as mine, for the benefit of Karasuno as a whole.”

Saizo wanted to nod, but he was too scared to seem cocky.

“See, when I was a newbie here, the great senpai I had here, Sugawara San told me something which opened me a whole new world, Kyouya kun: he told me he was happy that the point he could make in his own way, and the ones I could make in my own one, would all be Karasuno’s points in the end. And that as long as we would be fighting for that goal as a unit, nothing bad would ever come out of our wishes.” **NOTE 1**

“But... no one can substitute you?”

“And in fact you won’t substitute me. You will play as yourself, for the glory of our team. You have a great talent, Saizo kun. A talent which is just yours, and which has not to be a mirror of my own style of play. We have to use these weeks not to make you play as I do... but to allow everyone to adjust to your own style for as long as the team will need it. Do not feel like you will play in my place. Feel like you are gonna play for getting a path open for Karasuno to win it all. As yourself. As Saizo Kyouya.”

Saizo bowed at Kageyama. 

“I promise I will do my very best, Kageyama senpai.”

Kageyama seriously nodded at his kouhai and said that would have been more than enough to not tarnish any of Karasuno’s chances at championship.

“Nationals are held by the time I will be back from the Nations League. And I have complete faith you guys can get there with or without me, because you are all strong and our team is the strongest this year. I am in your care. Please... get there and then have me back at your best when Nationals will start in June.”

Hinata decided he had to promise that in his team’s place.

“Trust me: we will qualify. And then you better put your ass into this at your bestest best, Mr. National Team, because I won’t forgive you if after we qualify without said ass of yours, you won’t make us win it all. Understood?”

Kageyama didn’t nod. Kageyama didn’t tell anything more. He raised his fist to touch Hinata’s and just looked into his eyes for a few seconds. And that meant he had delivered to the short ace his own part of the promise, sealed like all words that needed to be spoken had been printed in flames on a polished stone only the two of them were able to see.

After some more details had been given out to the players regarding the arrangements for the new practices and after Takeda had explained how the incoming weeks would be dealt with, it came known how the Golden Week would be spent at Karasuno’s ground, which would have hosted in sparring games Alba Johsai and Date Tech, before a truly special event was going to top it off.

“I just came here after I had the pleasure of speaking with Mr. Fuki Hibarida,” said Takeda to an enraptured audience “and I am delighted to announce you guys that after our Golden Week training camp we will be hosted at Shiratorizawa Academy for a special sparring partnership with the National Juniores Team, where the majority of you will be allowed to play, and those who won’t will still be allowed to witness and be of an help for the teams, being ball boys and helpers and getting the major chance of looking how National trainees work.”

Feeling like all of his words had been fallen into the brains of his players finding no soil to stop their falling, Takeda coughed, trying to better explain himself: “I mean that you guys... will be allowed to be sparring partners for the National Juniores Team? You are going to meet and see all the players and the staffers of a National Selection?”

The faces of all the players gained back colors. One of them in particular got back to his full attitude sooner than others:

“That’s awesome!!!! But... where will Kageyama kun play there? With us or...”

Takeda looked at Hinata trying to put extreme care in his answer:

“Kageyama kun will play with the Juniores Team, Hinata kun. But I think this will be an extraordinary chance for you to make yourself noticed by all the staff there, even more if you will play without him, than alongside him.”

Hinata’s eyes gleamed.  
That had always been the truest fact. To get to shine without the imposing help of his longtime partner could have been the real deal for him regarding his chances for a further evolution of his game, and possible future professional career.  
And Hinata desperately wanted to be considered a player by himself, rather than part of a combo where one half was already shooting for the stars.

“Thank you Takeda sensei!”

Was the electrified conclusion from Hinata, finally aware of what could have been at stake for him during the incoming weeks.  
Takeda nodded to the redhead, even though he was aware he had no part in the choices of Hibarida who had arranged that sparring session following the will of the Juniores Team coaches, who had expressed deep in detail their guidelines for the call ups to the high school players chosen to be part of it.  
Looking briefly at Kageyama, and finding in his eyes a request, the teacher closed his own acknowledging the setter’s wishes, and fulfilling them through his silence.

The following days became a tough schedule of trials and readjustments for the volleyball club.  
Faithful to his reputation as a maniacal perfectionist, Kageyama did all he could for lifting the weight off from Saizo’s shoulders by involving equally all the rest of their teammates in the switching of plays Karasuno was bound to get accustomed to in a very short time.  
Pinnacles of Saizo’s tosses were distinctive of his, and quite different from Kageyama’s and although Saizo had tossed many times during games for everyone (Kageyama included), the fact for a very important while his tosses wouldn’t have been some of, but the entirety of the tosses Karasuno’s player would get to spike was no easy change to afford smoothly.  
Especially regarding the mentality of Karasuno’s people, rather than their sporty performance in itself.  
In addition to that, a new reinforcement setter had to be trained, and Yamaguchi found himself in the position which used to be Sugawara’s one for a while.  
Karasuno had another proper setter, but the freshman was too emotive for being the runner up of the position yet.  
Yamaguchi had gotten pretty good as an all rounder and the team would have been well backed also mentally if that role had been covered by him during the time of Kageyama’s absence.  
Furthermore, Akabane Shinichi, the new libero which was keeping being trained by Nishinoya occasionally, was also a very capable setter.

“The core of our schemes is safe. It’s just a matter of training it, repeating it, pushing it and... display willpower.”

Kageyama told the team at the end of the Golden Week camp.

“We might have lost a few games these days, but you have seen just like I did how we got better and better time after time. It’s just a matter of believing we... I mean... a matter of believing you can do it guys. I have no doubts you can. I am certain you can, actually.”

“Ukai San believes this is actually a very good formation for us,” added Tsukishima “and that many of our opponents will be thrown off by the diversity we will present them with once we get the roll of it. You’ve seen it today... Seijou couldn’t keep up with us at the end of the third set. We’ve lost for a technicality, but I am sure next time we won’t.”

All the team nodded, feeling empowered by their captain analysis.  
When the meeting ended, the players found some spare time to spend around the dormitory, chatting a bit and exchanging predictions for the incoming tournaments.  
Leaving the younger players on their own, the four third years of Karasuno began to wander apparently without direction around the woods, at first without speaking.  
The Moon was only half lighted up, and some clouds were dimming its light even more.

“So next time we see you on court you’ll be wearing red or white, Kageyama kun?”

Kageyama’s eyebrows collided, and he growled at Hinata: “And how can I know? It’s not something I decide myself, idiot!”

Yamaguchi chuckled.

“I think Hinata just wanted to break the ice, Kageyama...”

“Uh?”

“Yes... nobody was saying a word... so I guess he just wanted to start somewhere...”

Kageyama puffed his breath away.  
Yamaguchi could have gotten a point.

“Well... whatever... I have no idea. To be honest I think it’ll feel awkward to have you guys on the other side of the net, those days...”

The other three gulped. None of them had expected that from their setter.

“Look, the King’s all nice and emotional... what an unexpected development!”

“Shut up, Kei... It’s not that I am emotional or whatever... it’s just that... I really think it will be strange. BUT... I also look forward to it.”

Hinata swiftly got under Kageyama’s head, pulling his face down to get a better look at his grimace, and inquiring him with his usual unpolished exuberance:

“You look forward to be our opponent?”

“Not... not that way. I mean... I’ll be happy to see you there and then because that means you are also witnessed by the coaches and all the staff... I mean...”

“The King means he’s looking forward for us to make an impression on the National Team recruiters, I guess?”

Kageyama nodded at Tsukishima’s words.

“You are as absurd as usual. Like we can stand out anyway...”

Yamaguchi threw a little kick at his childhood friend, and Tsukishima yelped a bit.

“Yamaguchi was right, kicking you was the minimum, Tsukishima. We will certainly impress the National Team Coaches. And get this, Kageyama kun... next time we will also be with you there!”

Kageyama looked at Hinata with a strange look on his face. His face was still stern, but his eyes were actually mellow and kind of liquid. He wanted to say much, but he couldn’t find words fit enough so he just grunted a quick “you better” and forwarded fast into the baths to get ready for the night.  
Left behind, the three remaining ones kept the discourse a bit alive on the same topic.

“Tsukki, why are you always this negative? Don’t you think you could try to think well of yourself for once?”

Tsukishima snorted.

“I think very well of me. But I am not one to get demolished by impossible dreams.”

Hinata turned fast to Tsukishima, recalling a moment of their National Youth Camp time: **NOTE B**

“But back when you and I were at the National Camp, you confessed to me you wanted to be the best you could be?”

Tsukishima again snorted.  
Damn Hinata and his good selective memory.

“For the record, I believe I am doing pretty good, Hinata.”

“That’s what I believe as well. But I guess... well, I think Kageyama gives for granted that all of us could do even more.”

“And you follow our King’s impossible standards?”

Hinata genuinely looked surprised after Tsukishima.

“His standards? No way. These are MY standards. He just happens to agree with me.”

Tsukishima rolled his eyes, and speeded his feet up to get into the baths as well.  
That night he dreamt of hundreds of balls being thrown at him and his body getting wounded severely by their impact.  
He woke up in sweat, just to look at his teammates peacefully resting around him.  
He sighed, beginning to activate his over-analytical mind.

_Impressing the coaches... Do I want to do it? Do I want to do it for me? Or would I wish to do it just for..._

__Glancing at the side, Tsukishima looked at Kageyama sprawling over the bed, very inelegantly intertwined with a bit of Hinata’s legs on the side.  
Both of the guys drooling from their mouths, and breathing at unison._ _

__“Silly and sillier...”_ _

__And still, the more he was looking at Kageyama’s fringe unruly draping around his forehead, the more he was feeling he was in need to bend, to move it away, and try to..._ _

___What the hell am I thinking? Stop... STOP. ____ _

____And attempting to get his sleep back, Tsukishima rolled into his futon ordering himself to shut off his own brain until dawn._ _ _ _

_______The morning after Alba Johsai and Date Tech went back to their own school grounds, not before having promised Karasuno’s guys hell for the InterHigh._  
Some of the players were anyway bound to meet before it though, as a few ones from both schools had been selected to be sparring partners for the National Juniores Team as well on Shiratorizawa’s ground.  
The very special Camp would have rolled from 17th to 20th of May, and on the 18th a proper match against the National Juniores Team would have been played.  
A selection of the sparring players would have been put together and coached by National Youth Camp responsible, Hibarida Fuki, to play against Japan Juniores who would have kept their trio of usual coaches.  
The assigned help coaches would have been the coaches of each school team involved in the Camp. 

____“This is gonna be a whole big mess... how can so many heads work together well?”_ _ _ _

____Miya Atsumu hadn’t even stepped out of the National Team bus and he was already sprouting his own sentences around._ _ _ _

____“There there, Miya chan... stop being this critical. Enjoy the beauty of Miyagi instead. Breathe this fresh air out of our nature!”_ _ _ _

____“Listen, Oikawa kun... why are you so happy? Isn’t this the ground of the school thanx to which you’ve never won a thing in your career?”_ _ _ _

_______Oikawa stopped his steps on the verge of the last one before stepping off the bus which had gotten National Juniores Team in Shiratorizawa’s complex._  
His ears had become instantly purple and his head was being kept worryingly down.  
But before he could jump and strangle Miya, who was feet on ground wearing a bright evil smile, Ushijima put from high and behind his back a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it to calm the chocolate haired setter down.  
Then directing his sight at Miya, he made clear he must had to stop that kind of tease, if he wanted to keep being one piece of a man.  
Miya immediately turned to the assistants who were taking their bags off from the bus cargo, and nonchalantly gathered near to his coaches, peaceful like an angel. 

____“Don’t mind that brat, Oikawa. You know him. He likes to rile you up.”_ _ _ _

____Oikawa nodded._ _ _ _

____“I know. I won’t mind then. Though I have to admit I’d have preferred to have our sparring games somewhere else.”_ _ _ _

____Ushijima nodded himself._ _ _ _

____“It’s rare to have you this honest. I think it’s a good thing.”_ _ _ _

____“Pfffttt..”_ _ _ _

____“Why are you laughing? I am serious...”_ _ _ _

____“Sorry... but you... you sounded just like Iwa chan now. I couldn’t refrain...”_ _ _ _

____Ushijima and Oikawa were on ground as well, waiting for their bags to be handed to them._ _ _ _

____“Oh, Iwaizumi. How’s he doing? He’s in the USA, still?”_ _ _ _

____“Yep. He’s doing pretty well actually. I just gotten off the phone with him...”_ _ _ _

____“You were calling him from the bus?”_ _ _ _

____“Of course not. We were chatting on Discord. We have one for our old team members we love to keep up with...”_ _ _ _

____“Oh.”_ _ _ _

____“You don’t have the faintest idea what I am talking about right?”_ _ _ _

____“No. But it doesn’t matter. These things are not interesting for me.”_ _ _ _

____“Of course they aren’t. You don’t have friends.”_ _ _ _

____“I do have them.”_ _ _ _

____“No you don’t. You are unsocial. You are like Tobio.”_ _ _ _

____“I am not. He’s not unsocial either. It’s just that we like to speak with people when facing them maybe, instead than through a screen?”_ _ _ _

____“You are unsocial. Full point. You wouldn’t even speak if it weren’t for me?”_ _ _ _

____“You mean at Todai?” **NOTE C**_ _ _ _

____“I mean anywhere...”_ _ _ _

_______The look of vagueness in Ushijima’s face told Oikawa it could have been a never ending discussion only made by him, and the setter stopped trying to make the ace understand the value of sociability online._  
People were just very different.  
And he was lucky to be one of the different ones with the most desirable characteristics. 

____“Let’s go, Ushiwaka chan. Coaches are waving at us to speed up...”_ _ _ _

_______Ushijima must have been reflecting on the words he had just spoken earlier, because he didn’t even correct Oikawa for using the nickname he disliked._  
Actually, the broad spiker was just taking in the feeling of being back in his old school.  
For how much he always looked impassive and sensible, Ushijima Wakatoshi was actually a very deep and delicate person.  
He was someone very grateful to his roots and very respectful of any heritage he was feeling an offspring of and also in charge for.  
And Shiratorizawa , which had shaped him undoubtedly, meant many beautiful things to him. 

____“Wakatoshi San, so this is Shiratorizawa Academy? It’s an outstanding place. Very well organized. No wonder it has become a powerhouse in many fields.”_ _ _ _

____“We try our best to keep our level high, Kyoomi kun. I am glad it shows.”_ _ _ _

____“You speak like you are still a Shiratorizawa student.”_ _ _ _

____“I take pride in the fact I will _always_ be a Shiratorizawa student, in fact.”_ _ _ _

____Sakusa nodded. He had always admired the principles leading Ushijima’s ahead._ _ _ _

____“You can lower your mask here, Kyoomi. The air round here is pure. I promise.”_ _ _ _

____Sakusa seemed to question Ushijima’s advice, then reluctantly he tried to look around, before attempting to lower his protective mask from his face. He turned, just to find Komori Motoya’s brilliant eyes suggesting him to complete his action, and take off the mask for good._ _ _ _

____“The air here really is great! Try it, man... you’ll love it!”_ _ _ _

_______Sakusa knew how Komori meant no disrespect with his familiar push. And he wanted to grant his hope, he wanted to take off the mask._  
But many of the gestures others would do without even noticing them, they would be extremely difficult for him.  
He had not to think too much... he had not to think too much and... try.  
Try to breathe fresh air like it was just fresh air, and not an army of pests and germs.  
He closed his eyes, feeling the breeze into his hair, and then opening them.  
Sun was climbing, and the day was bright.  
The sky was of a full sapphire and birds were tweeting in a chaotic, yet good-natured way.  
It was a good day.  
It was going to be a good day.  
A day good enough to accept how the air around had just to be breathed in and out, and not battled off like venom.  
And in a good day like that, Sakusa Kyoomi would have been at his best.  
Because in such a good day like that, he would have been aside the one to make him feel at his best, no matter the surrounding, no matter the air, no matter the trees, the birds or the germs.  
In that day, Sakusa Kyoomi was to be at his best.  
Because only then he would have been at the same level as the one who was there to make him better than his best. 

____“Sakusa San!”_ _ _ _

____The voice came at him like the sound comes at the ears of somebody who emerges from water from the world around: neat, like a snap, like all the senses get awaken from the distinguished sounds the ears finally catch after being underwater._ _ _ _

____“Yes, Tobio?”_ _ _ _

____Kageyama stalled, surprised by the sudden answer. He feared he had stepped on a land mine, but he had perceived how Sakusa might have been on the verge of a sort of crisis, all absent and soundly breathing in and out trying to lower his mask, in a day where no masks had to be worn, with such a pleasant and happy weather._ _ _ _

____“Sorry... I thought...”_ _ _ _

____Kageyama had the feeling he had not to half-assess his reason with Sakusa, to keep his favors intact. Kageyama was the kind of person to always speak his mind, after all:_ _ _ _

____“...I thought you were not feeling well. If I overreacted, or if I overestimated my position... I am sorry.”_ _ _ _

____Sakusa’s eyes lidded, with a glint of caring shade._ _ _ _

____“Don’t be sorry. There’s no reason for. I actually was undecided if I had to breathe this air or not. People are saying it’s too good not to breathe it fully...”_ _ _ _

____Kageyama nodded at Sakusa, just like a kid would to convince an adult about some incredible novelty only kids use to get excited about:_ _ _ _

____“People are right! You will like the air here, Sakusa San. This air... is invincible after all!”_ _ _ _

____“Invincible?”_ _ _ _

____“Yes. I believe so. It’s the air made for people who have survived tsunami, terrible earthquakes and nuclear disasters. But people are still here, fighting and thriving, to be happier. And I believe it has to do with this air. This air which makes us stronger.”_ _ _ _

____Sakusa took off his mask, with a quick move full of decisive intention. His beautiful face receiving the touch of Sun completely, making his clear skin gloat._ _ _ _

____“You’ve convinced me. Let’s get stronger together, okay?”_ _ _ _

____Kageyama squinted his eyes and kept nodding, while a thin smile appeared for a second from under his bangs, at his head bent in sign of gratitude for Sakusa’s trust.  
One minute later, Japan Juniores Team was facing the ranks of Karasuno third and second years enlarged with a few third year players from other valuable high schools from the nation: Haiba Lev and Yuki Shibayama from Nekoma High, Eikichi Chigaya from Shinzen Academy, Wataru Onaga from Fukurodani, Michinari Akagi from Inarizaki High, Kindaichi Yuutaro and Kunimi Akira from Aoba Johsai, Kanji Koganegawa from Date Tech, Yudai Hyakuzawa from Kakugawa High, and Tsutomu Goshiki from Shiratorizawa._ _ _ _

____“It’s gonna be a very good time here in Shiratorizawa” said in a whisper to himself Miya Atsumu, eager to make the best out of that chance “I better decide how to move my pawns, because time is short, and gotta be used well...”_ _ _ _

____Around him, quite a number of familiar faces went up to greet him.  
He answered enthusiastically and cleverly to everyone, without meaning not a single word he had said, to any of them._ _ _ _

____Pawns.  
He just could see pawns around him, in that first day of Shiratorizawa National Juniores Camp._ _ _ _

____——-_ _ _ _

____ _ _

_______Watching the Japan Juniores team play resembled diving into an Icelandic volcano for Hinata: players he had already witnessed playing against him, gaining a totally different light._  
And the major reason for that shade change, Hinata felt almost on his skin, was that they were playing with _his_ setter.  
The stingy sensation under his chest cage, coming from multiple directions at once at him, made him stutter when Tsukishima offered him a bottle of supplement beverage near the end of the first practice the high schoolers were having with the National recruiters. 

____“Hinata, don’t stay mouth agape looking at them. You seem crazy.”_ _ _ _

____Hinata took the bottle from Tsukishima’s hand, without answering at first, which was unusual for a person always willing to have the last word in anything.  
Tsukishima quickly realized where the shorter player was looking at, and a sudden understanding came from him, at which Hinata reacted._ _ _ _

____“You were thinking how good they are, weren’t you?”_ _ _ _

____“Sort of. But I am getting soon as good as them, so it doesn’t matter.”_ _ _ _

____“I shouldn’t be anymore impressed by your baseless wide mouthed declarations. But every time your stupidity gets me actually.”_ _ _ _

____“Shut up, you tall loser. We are almost as good as them, or we wouldn’t be here to help them to train. It’s a fact.”_ _ _ _

____“Sure. It’s a fact. Suuuuuure thing.”_ _ _ _

____Hinata moved nearer to his captain, and put up a bad face; or a face he _thought_ had to look bad and freaky._ _ _ _

____“You have so much going on for you... and yet you still so unaware of yourself. It makes me mad. If I only were as tall as you... I would... I would...”_ _ _ _

____“You would what? Make and even bigger joke out of yourself? Listen: it’s not only about being tall or short. In sports, there are kind of talents who grace some people only and those gifted people are different from the masses from the start. That’s it.”_ _ _ _

____“I know. I agree. We have that kind of talent. I got it, but as much as it pains me to admit it, you’ve got it too...”_ _ _ _

____Tsukishima rolled his eyes. That shortie and his absurd assumptions._ _ _ _

____“No. I ain’t got a thing, and neither do you. Your only talent is your huge, monstrous self assurance. It’s even bigger than your athleticism, and that’s something. But look, Hinata... I mean: look at them training. They are _not like me and you._ Realize it. The sooner, the better.”_ _ _ _

_______And at that, Tsukishima went back talking to coach Ukai and Etsuko Kawasaki, who was trying her hardest no to faint while passing near to Kageyama at any switch of the court the Juniores team would take, making everyone else around moving away accordingly. Tsukishima looked at the girl with a sort of protective care, as he could partially sympathize with her overwhelmed heart._  
Taking a glance at the raven haired setter dressed all in white for the National training, he had to admit he was looking splendid in that color.  
His skin had colored a bit after the late spring sun and his hair seemed even more silky those days. And there was the intensity of his face while playing for the team with their Country flag on which was a true sight for the chronicles.  
Then Tsukishima looked at the players around Kageyama. All impressive players, but none as impressive as the only one he actually cared for. 

____“Tsukishima kun, are you ok?”_ _ _ _

_______Yachi had arrived with a new selection of sporty beverages. Behind her, like a Knight savoring the entirety of her life, stood Yamaguchi, who resembled more a ball boy than their freshmen schoolmates who had actually been recruited to be ones those days._  
Yamaguchi couldn’t believe National Coaches had agreed to have him be a sparring partner for people dressed with the national uniform.  
It warmed Tsukishima’s heart to realize how far his timid friend had progressed in their three years at Karasuno.  
Much had to do with the girl he was constantly tied to, and in fact since Hitoka had agreed to be his girlfriend, Yamaguchi had also gotten much, much better at volley.  
Love can do it all, he thought.  
Replying to the blonde manager he was totally fine, Tsukishima told the couple that they looked always happy to be together, so much that they had to be the happiest in that gym full of sporty freaks.  
Yachi said there was at least another person as happy as them, though, and pointing away, she said: 

____“Look at Kageyama kun. We might be the happiest boy and girl... but even us can’t match the infinite love Kageyama kun has with a volleyball!”_ _ _ _

____Yamaguchi chuckled a little, while Tsukishima instinctively went to see Etsuko getting sadder. The poor girl couldn’t get how someone as good looking as Kageyama would only mind keeping an object in his hand, rather than look out for a girl._ _ _ _

____He could relate, somehow.  
But he didn’t want to mind too much._ _ _ _

____When a first break was given for the players to eat something in the cafeteria of Shiratorizawa volleyball area, Kageyama parted from the National Team group to zoom like a laser towards Karasuno’s table, carefully taking note of every teammate of his’ plates.  
When he arrived at inspecting Tsukishima’s one, he couldn’t avoid to state his contrariness._ _ _ _

____“What’s that? Are you kidding me?”_ _ _ _

____Tsukishima couldn’t care less of his vice opinion about his diet, so he shushed him off with an hand and tried to start munching on his plain rice and vegetables.  
Kageyama moved quickly to the zone where one could pick up food, and came back with a full dish of meat and sauce, pushing it under Tsukishima’s face._ _ _ _

____“Oi, King: what’s this?”_ _ _ _

____“It’s your rest of the meal. Eat it.”_ _ _ _

____“I won’t. I don’t like any of that.”_ _ _ _

____“And I won’t like you fainting in the middle of the game, thing which will happen if you keep your protein nutrients this way on the low. Your muscles need fibers and proteins. So just do what’s gotta be done.”_ _ _ _

____Tsukishima didn’t like when Kageyama was being this pushy, especially in front of all the rest of the people. But a little part of him was also inexplicably happy he had taken time away from his own team that moment to come at him. But the main point was that he would have never accepted to be manhandled by anyone. Much less someone shorter than him. His pride wouldn’t allow it._ _ _ _

____“I’ll do what I like. You are not my coach.”_ _ _ _

____“Ukai San agrees with me.”_ _ _ _

____“Ukai San is at the table of the coaches and not here. So please get back where you belong and let me eat what I want. I won’t faint. Go.”_ _ _ _

____Kageyama didn’t move. His face was getting angrier by the minute.  
Why nobody ever listened to him in that team, even when he was generally always completely right?_ _ _ _

____“So? Are you still here? Aren’t you hungry yourself?”_ _ _ _

____For a second Kageyama realized he had yet to fill his plate. But then looking at the smug face of Kei, he decided he could wait a moment, enough to win that battle._ _ _ _

____“I am hungry, yes, but I care more about you eating what I brought you. Do it. It will... help you.”_ _ _ _

____Tsukishima tilted his head._ _ _ _

____“It will...help me?”_ _ _ _

____“Yes. I know which kind of training you’ll be submitted to and believe me, you need to eat this meat. So do it. Hinata!”_ _ _ _

____Hinata was stuffing his mouth like there was no tomorrow; his usual way, in fact. Growling incomprehensible words at Kageyama, he received a nod from him. In their own way, they had agreed about making Tsukishima eat, one way or another._ _ _ _

____“I leave him in your care, Hinata. Force him and don’t have mercy.” Whispered the setter to the short spiker, while beginning to sway away._ _ _ _

_______Hinata gave a thumb up to the setter while keeping eating. At that point Kageyama went back to the self service zone and filled his plate with every kind of tasty meat available._  
Tsukishima followed him up until he sat down, visible to him, to a side of the table where Ushijima, Oikawa, Sakusa, Miya and Komori were already sitting.  
He got fixed on the way the guy was eating.  
He was like a black wolf, the image of hunger, while maintaining a sort of perilous aura about himself.  
There was not much grace in his continuous flash strapping, but at the same time, Tsukishima couldn’t look away.  
There was an impetuous of force and a loaded, wicked feeling of primordiality in the way Kageyama was eating which sent shivers down his spine. 

_____The way he eats... why am I getting aroused by that?_ _ _ _ _

____Forced to divert his eyes from Kageyama, Tsukishima faced the two plates, still unfinished, below his eyes. He sighed, sensing Hinata’s order coming his way._ _ _ _

____“Eat it, Tsukishima. Because if you choose to not doing it, and then we make a poor figure against Kageyama in the sparring game, I won’t make you see the end of it!”_ _ _ _

____Tsukishima knew all too well that was not a threat to underestimate, and indeed Hinata could be insufferable when repeating for hours “told you so!”.  
He took another look at the plates, then finally moved at eating the meat he had been offered, he started to slowly putting down everything before him._ _ _ _

_____This won’t help me at all. I am not like you, King. Accept it._ _ _ _ _

____ _ _

____——-_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“That tinier you is good, Tobio chan!”_ _ _ _

____Kageyama felt a sense of pride. He liked Kyouya very much: “He truly is. We didn’t want to use him much these days, to not give other players from other schools any hint about the way Karasuno will do with him in my place but... he shines naturally. Can’t be helped.”_ _ _ _

____“And you are happy about it?”_ _ _ _

____Kageyama looked at Oikawa with doubtful face: “Shouldn’t I?”_ _ _ _

____Oikawa scratched his head, before meekly explaining he shouldn’t _fully_ be happy about a potential adversary stealing his place in his team.  
Kageyama kept showing to not being in tune with his former senpai._ _ _ _

____“But Saizo isn’t my adversary? We play in the same team?”_ _ _ _

____“You really don’t get it? I mean... if he’s really good, he could take your titular shirt?”_ _ _ _

____Kageyama smiled swiftly. Then his eyes became as strong and solid as a dark blue marble. And with neutral voice, he told Oikawa he would never get his place in Karasuno stolen by anybody, no matter how good they’d be, because he would always try to be better than them._ _ _ _

____“Fits you. But be careful. That guy’s gonna be a torn in your side sooner than later. Don’t come crying at me if you take your status for granted, okay?”_ _ _ _

____“I won’t. I mean... I won’t take it for granted. Thank you for your concern Oikawa San.”_ _ _ _

____Oikawa looked at Kageyama. His eyes at him, shining back with their full on sparkle. There was nothing which could make that overgrown ravenette happier than feeling _Oikawa San_ was being kind of a committed senpai to him. Stupid Tobio chan. Stupid Tobio chan with the sparkly eyes, thought Tooru._ _ _ _

____During a break in the practice, the players of Juniores team came each to their former schoolmates to exchange some words and get some impressions from the invited sparring partners. Kageyama got to Karasuno players first, then he directed towards Nekoma, Fukurodani and Shinzen’s ones. Oikawa and Miya moved towards Aoba Johsai and Inarizaki’s, while Komori addressed himself to Kokanegawa and Hyakuzawa, to praise them for their performance despite the fact they didn’t come from Itachiyama._ _ _ _

____“You don’t have people you want to hear from, Kyoomi kun?”_ _ _ _

____Sakusa replied to Ushijima he didn’t feel any of the younger players had done enough to deserve a word from him._ _ _ _

____“But some of them played really well. Our Tsutomu, for instance. And that tall Russian guy from Nekoma, who was good already the previous time. Then I believe the middle blocker from Karasuno is always outstanding.”_ _ _ _

____Sakusa tensed._ _ _ _

____“Don’t you agree, Kyoomi? He did really well. Both days. The guy’s got numbers.”_ _ _ _

____“The guy doesn’t. And he’s terribly loud, and goes way ahead of himself.”_ _ _ _

____Ushijima couldn’t understand Sakusa’s stance: “Loud? He barely talks?”_ _ _ _

____Sakusa realized he had pre-assumed too much._ _ _ _

____“Oh... I thought you were talking about Hinata.”_ _ _ _

____“Hinata? Hinata’s done well too. But I wasn’t talking about him.”_ _ _ _

____“You meant Tsukishima, right? I also think he has something going on about him. But he’s almost trying to refuse it. Which is a waste. All considered, I believe Ryouma Tojo is the one who stood out the most in Karasuno. And by the way: Hinata didn’t do well at all. If one would just judge his game bypassing his height deficiency, said game would be average. Average at best.”_ _ _ _

____Ushijima nodded.  
He was agreeing, though he had always liked the spirit of Hinata, unwilling to give up just because his physical shell was not fitting to play the sport he clearly adored to play._ _ _ _

____“I think you’re right. But I can’t help feeling pushed by that little redhead whenever I see him. His desperation in trying to succeed in volley puts more responsibilities on me. Like he’s there to eat me, if I don’t give out the same he does.”_ _ _ _

____Sakusa didn’t reply, and Ushijima moved to Goshiki, to praise him and to order him to stay in shape long enough to get soon selected as well for the Juniores Team.  
Goshiki, starred eyed at his former senpai’s request, promised he would have not disappointed him, and explaining the only thing which had gotten in the way of his call up from the National Team had been the fact he had been injured the majority of his sophomore year in high school, he solemnly swore his commitment to get on the same stage as Ushijima._ _ _ _

____“Kyoomi, Kyoomi... you really can’t avoid to despise Shouyou kun can you?”_ _ _ _

____Miya had come back by Sakusa’s side, in time to listen to the late speech he had with Ushijima._ _ _ _

____“Hinata won’t ever be able to go past high school level volleyball. This is it.”_ _ _ _

____“But Tobio doesn’t seem to think as you. You know it was mostly his wish to get his partner into this sparring game play...”_ _ _ _

____“Tobio is a person who gives always his all. His talent has so far compensated Hinata’s unfitting body for this sport. But soon enough, that compensation won’t be happening anymore.”_ _ _ _

____“And you can’t wait, can you?”_ _ _ _

____“It’s not something that has to do with you.”_ _ _ _

____“True. By the way... what do you think of Karasuno’s captain?”_ _ _ _

____Sakusa carelessly replied he thought he had been decent enough in those days:_ _ _ _

____“He has always been a good player also against us in the Nationals. But he lacks passion. So all of his good talent is always on the brink of waste.”_ _ _ _

____Atsumu smiled._ _ _ _

____“Well, I think you shall get more involved in letting that passion of his to stay swept under the rug.”_ _ _ _

____Sakusa didn’t reply, so Atsumu went on, as he would always do when willing to express himself, regardless of his audience opinion on the matter._ _ _ _

____“I mean that you are misplacing your sense of possession when it comes to Tobio and his Karasuno’s people. You keep looking out to Hinata to see him gone. But you’d better borrow an eye and follow much more that tall glasses guy instead.”_ _ _ _

____Sakusa this time answered, unasked, at the notation of the bicolored setter:_ _ _ _

____“Miya, you are way too manipulative to be allowed in the presence of someone as straightforward and sincere as Tobio. You may try all you can think of and cutting all of the ties you think he is linked to. But even coming the day when he won’t have any link left, he still wouldn’t be able to get together with a soul as obscure as yours.”_ _ _ _

____Miya gently moved his hand in front of Sakusa, like the gesture of a knight inviting a damsel to dance:_ _ _ _

____“My soul is all but obscure, Kyoomi kun. My soul is full of hopes and dreams. And full of will of fighting for them. What is your soul up to, when you don’t even allow people to see you have gotten one?”_ _ _ _

____And saying that, he turned back to Sakusa, to reach again the sparring players from the high schools._ _ _ _

____“Have you two quarreled again, Kyoomi?”_ _ _ _

____“No we haven’t, don’t mind Motoya.”_ _ _ _

_______Komori Motoya traced the line from Sakusa’s pupils to the point they were fixed at._  
Then he sighed, scrolling his head, before composing his face back in its usual cheerful look.  
Sakusa was looking intently at Kageyama who was involved in a conversation with the short Karasuno ace.  
Komori could see how Kageyama would behave around Hinata in a completely different way than around others.  
He would be gesturing, he would be loud, and completely childlike.  
The Kageyama around Hinata would look really like a teenager, most of times.  
A very happy, grumpy and expressive teenager. 

____“See, Kyoomi... you shouldn’t be always harsh regarding Hinata. In a way... I do believe the way Kageyama is and the way he performs... all that happens the way it does because Hinata has been by his side these three years. Whatever you may think of him as a player... you can’t deny his importance in Kageyama’s development. So in a way... let him be.”_ _ _ _

____Sakusa darted against Komori, knives of purple out of his eyes._ _ _ _

____“I know you mean no harm, and that you think you’re just telling the world the truth about Hinata, Kyoomi. And I agree with that. Heck... I guess even Kageyama agrees with that. But people are not just one face. We are not just one thing. Multiple truths can coexist in each one of us, so that Hinata can be at once a future failure player and also the most important partner Kageyama has ever gotten, in a way which can make Kageyama your future perfect partner. All of this can be true. And coexist. In peace.”_ _ _ _

____The darts in Sakusa’s eyes faded out._ _ _ _

____“Just... take it easy Kyoomi, ok?”_ _ _ _

____And leaving Sakusa’s side, Komori reached out to Kageyama, to call him up and getting him back to their side of the gymnasium before the practice would start anew._ _ _ _

____————-_ _ _ _

____After the second round of practice, all the players were very worn out. As the coaches of all the selections involved were gathering to exchange views, the players convened in mixed group to help one another cool down after the effort, before performing the usual stretching exercises to rest their muscles._ _ _ _

____Kageyama ended near to Tsukishima, and the two began naturally to speak while having their light session together.  
After learning Tsukishima had eaten all his meat, Kageyama felt like he had to land some praise to him, to express contentment._ _ _ _

____“I have yet to thank you for the latest mix we’ve used for our runs, Kei...”_ _ _ _

____“Don’t need to King. I am glad you like it.”_ _ _ _

____“I hope you like it too... I mean... you changed it to put songs which might have been of my taste?”_ _ _ _

____“But you don’t have a taste. Yet.”_ _ _ _

____“I’d like to get to grow one.”_ _ _ _

____“Really? That’s a new sound. I thought as long as it was something, you couldn’t tell many difference among songs.”_ _ _ _

____“As I said, I’d like to learn more about that. And I think I couldn’t learn from anyone better than from you. How many artists do you know?”_ _ _ _

____“Too many to mention...”_ _ _ _

____“What's your favorite album?”_ _ _ _

____“I have many… It depends…”_ _ _ _

____“But if you had to pick one to listen… now?”_ _ _ _

____“The… Dark side of the Moon… Pink Floyd… I guess.”_ _ _ _

____“Any particular reason?”_ _ _ _

____“Beside it being a masterpiece?”_ _ _ _

____“Mmh.”_ _ _ _

____“Well… I…”_ _ _ _

____Kageyama looked at Tsukishima, who was unnaturally stuttering._ _ _ _

____“… I think I like… the way the title… sounds.”_ _ _ _

____Kageyama couldn't understand it. But Tsukishima had managed to confess his love, his need of symbiosis, in a very interesting way. Their surname kind of mixed in the words of one of the greatest pieces of rock music ever written._ _ _ _

____A few minutes later, apparently coming out of nothing, Miya Atsumu joined the two guys, asking if they could help him stretch. Kageyama was swift at accepting, but had to cut the stretching short due to a request from one of his National Coaches, who wanted to spend a couple of words together. Making sure Tsukishima would have finished the round of stretch alongside Atsumu, he moved away, always eager to please his coaches._ _ _ _

____“Tsukishima kun, can you push my back lower with your knee? I feel tensed still in its lower part...”_ _ _ _

____Tsukishima put more pressure in his push, and Miya sprawled onto the floor._ _ _ _

____“Ah! This is really good! Thank you, Tsukishima kun. Do you want my help as well?”_ _ _ _

____Tsukishima looked undecided, which was a capital mistake in dealing with Atsumu, since at that point the shorter player gained the upper hand and decided to stretch the taller middle blocker following his own decisions._ _ _ _

____“I’ll stretch you real good, Tsukishima kun! I bet you never feel completely elongated when you do it yourself. Your height is a blessing, but it gotta be cared for...”_ _ _ _

_______Tsukishima absent-minded nodded. He was still unsure about how much of a blessing his height was._  
Atsumu was interpreting every reaction of the middle blocker, in his mind accumulating informations about him, like a scanner.  
He didn’t miss how the natural blonde had glanced at Kageyama. He hadn’t missed _any_ of those glances in the two days spent observing the two. 

____“I’ve heard you are a music expert, Tsukishima kun?”_ _ _ _

____Tsukishima quivered a bit under Atsumu’s weighting hand pressure over his back; where did he hear that?_ _ _ _

____“I am not?”_ _ _ _

____“Oh, you are always so modest! I’ve heard a bit of your earlier conversation with Tobio. I like Pink Floyd too, you know.”_ _ _ _

____Tsukishima became alerted.  
He felt he had to, with a guy as sly as Miya Atsumu,_ _ _ _

____“That’s good. They are a seminal band, indeed.”_ _ _ _

____“I also know how it’s you who create the mixes Tobio uses during his runs. They are good, so you really must be a music master. I mean, Tobio has not the faintest idea about music, but I, which I do, think your mixes rock!”_ _ _ _

_______Tsukishima turned his head up to meet a smiling Miya._  
That looked like a genuine smile.  
Maybe the guy was just an honest music appreciator and he had misjudged him. 

____Maybe._ _ _ _

____“Can I give you a song title you don’t know about probably?”_ _ _ _

____Tsukishima made clear Atsumu could._ _ _ _

____“It’s a song my mom used to play a lot when Samu and I were little. It’s a normal and cheesy pop song, but I find it very suggestive. I’d love to play it in the background the day I get to have a sexy time with someone I like...” **NOTE D**_ _ _ _

_______Tsukishima froze a bit._  
Why that information?  
They weren’t friends.  
There was no need to be that open between them... or was it just... a musical advice? 

____“I’ll write you the song down on a piece of paper later tonight, after dinner. Let me know if it’s the kind of song which speaks to you, or if its title makes you think of things, and feel things too.”_ _ _ _

_______And saying that, Atsumu raised up, leaving Tsukishima on the gym floor, immobilized and unable to process and give a nuance to their whole conversation just then._  
There had been un undertone of intimidation in Miya’s words, or was his mind playing him as it was usual when he was feeling in a weak position?  
Tsukishima wondered which kind of song Miya would have written to him about that evening, and for a while he kept minding, until a new arrival squandered all of his remaining quietness and sanity away, exactly in the moment all the players had to stand up and receive permission to leave the gym before getting ready for the late evening activities, and their dinner. 

_______Mixed with the staffers of the various schools, and given words by the National Team Coaches, stood Haiba Alisa._  
And Tsukishima felt an impromptu will of disappearing right there and then.  
What was she doing there?  
Had she been invited as well?  
Why? 

____The explanation came quickly. Haiba Alisa was on the final part of her trainee as a nurse, and she had been invited to get aquatinted with the JVA, as her major was involving the most promising students with the different sport federations of the country, looking for their future insertion in the growing units which would be part of the staff for the Olympic Games of 2020._ _ _ _

____“Forgive my intrusion, and let me help you with your medical needs! To all the coaches of the High Schools involved in this Camp, feel free to test my knowledgeability regarding matters of sport health in which I might be of an help for you!”_ _ _ _

_______Alisa winked briefly at her brother, who had not known about the fact she would have been there. Lev instinctively turned to Hinata, to let him know he had been left in the dark by his own sister, but trying to catch sight of him looking down the players on the trot aside him, he saw he was too far away to get his gesture._  
Sighing and facing back to Alisa, he mimicked a tiny thrown kiss pursing his lips, and receiving one back from her.  
Back at the ending of the row, Hinata had been trying to get Kageyama to face him, as soon as he had seen Alisa with the coaches up that late afternoon.  
He was keeping murmuring he had to know about that, but Kageyama kept ignoring him.  
He hadn’t actually.  
But those were not Hinata’s things to mind anyway, so he would not clear his curiosity unless forced.  
He was happy she was there though. It was always a good day for him whenever he could get the chance to look at her inspirational smile.  
That girl was perfect to be a nurse, because her cheerfulness and positivity could be healing in themselves, and she had a natural human touch even he, who was mostly detached, could appreciate.  
The day of training had progressed on without hitches, ban the fact the coaches had decided to move the date of the sparring game from that one, May 18th, to the following one, May 19th.  
The reason for the change was that the good practices the players were having would have been a good thing to keep on doing for a while more, before playing a proper match.  
That day, the National Juniores had kept switching partners and formations while training also with the high schoolers recruits and that had given anyone in the gym more than an opportunity to shine.  
At the end of it all, many of the players were dried out, and it was suggested by Hibarida to take that chance to taste parameters of dehydration on all of them, before allowing them to rest, just after having introduced Alisa to everyone. 

____“You might take your baths a bit later guys, and we willlet you have a later curfew tonight.”_ _ _ _

____Alisa came to help the infirmary staff, and for an hour she worked like a well instructed happy bee.  
The tests lasted a bit longer than expected, so that by the time the players had to find themselves by the restaurant location, the whole of the infirmary was yet to be customized back to order._ _ _ _

____“Poor girl, she won’t even eat this way?” Said Miya Atsumu while he was going to the restaurant building door, followed by his usual companions in the National Team “she shall ask for help. Couldn’t we help her, Tobio kun?”_ _ _ _

____Oikawa grabbed Miya’s shirt pulling it down with a certain force. Miya didn’t turn head, but he began to smirk. Meanwhile, Kageyama hadn’t caught up on his proposal, so the bleached setter kept going on:_ _ _ _

____“I mean,wouldn’t you like to help her, Tobio? By the way, did you know she would be here today?”_ _ _ _

____At that, Kageyama replied he had not idea she would have._ _ _ _

____“How cute! Maybe she wanted to surprise you! And you? Sorry if I tell you this, Tobio kun... You are all cold and indifferent and aren’t even gonna help her? So very ungentlemanly of you...”_ _ _ _

____Kageyama looked at his senpai with an abashed look. He had no idea it was up to him to put his nose into Alisa’s stuff this way. But it was true that he had zero experience about being gentlemanly. Gentlemen for him were people dressed up in penguin suits who were always in between James Bond and a butler. Omniscients, but very versed in discreetness and always able to understands what people wanted them to do.  
In one word, gentlemen and him were antipodes._ _ _ _

____“So you think I can offer her to help? But how? And... do I have to ask permission?”_ _ _ _

____Miya invited all his companions to sit at the table he had chosen for that evening dinner. Then, almost like the conversation wasn’t that important to him, he recuperated the speech from before, to answer Kageyama about what he had been curious of:_ _ _ _

____“I don’t think you need permission? We are free after all from now till curfew? If any, it’s up to her to ask permission for you and herself? But that’s not the main point. To be nice to her it’s enough for you to offer your helping hand. Maybe you won’t even have to do a thing. But that way, with that single potential supply, you’ll make that girl happy. Isn’t this what a good boyfriend would do?”_ _ _ _

____At the smile of Miya, Kageyama blushed. In fact, he remembered how he had used himself that word to define what he and Alisa had more or less become to one another. But it was still sounding bumbling in his head to think of himself as a boyfriend to anyone, so he stiffed a bit and diverted his eyes to let the topic fade. **NOTE E**_ _ _ _

____“Listen Tobio, no need to wrap your head about this. Go there and ask her if she needs help in cleaning and customizing the infirmary. You can tell her you can help her better after dinner? We have quite the time after eating. Instead of go running again in one of your light training sessions, you can do a different type of physical activity?”_ _ _ _

____Kageyama at that blushed for real.  
Miya’s smirk increased. The two were momentarily alone at the table because the rest of the guys had gone to take their food from the self service. As Oikawa and Ushijima were ready to get back at them, and before Kageyama would stand up to take his turn, Miya simply capped the conversation, by giving him a final push:_ _ _ _

____“Don’t be shy, Tobio kun. You can kill two birds with one stone: you can help her, and then maybe have a few minutes of nice company along her. It’s not like you’re gonna do anything enormous or whatever. Maybe a couple of kisses? Nothing you have yet to do? We’ve trained a lot these days. Allow yourself some liberty for once. She’ll be very happy as well. Trust me.”_ _ _ _

____Kageyama thought a bit about Atsumu’s words. Then before leaving to pick up his dinner, he bowed at him and thanked him for his advice:_ _ _ _

____“Thank you Miya San. I think I’ll go searching for Alisa after dinner and ask her if I can help her then. I can postpone my run after it. It shouldn’t take much?”_ _ _ _

____Atsumu slit his droopy eyes in a gladdened expression of joy:_ _ _ _

____“Of course, Tobio kun! Of course... now go picking up your meat or the best choices will be gone!”_ _ _ _

____Waving his kouhai away, Miya faced Oikawa, who was sitting back down just in front of him. Ushijima had yet to reach the table back as he had stopped along Sakusa and Komori near Kageyama, to tell him which meat parts looked the best that evening to be selected._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Why did you push Tobio into this, Miya? Because it’s you who has pushed him to offer his help to that girl, ain’t it?”_ _ _ _

____“I told you already, Tooru kun: to get him, I must be fully chosen by him. And he won’t be able to choose, if he doesn’t know anything but me.”_ _ _ _

____“So you push him into the arms of a beautiful woman, who will wrap him up around her experienced finger in no time?”_ _ _ _

____Miya chuckled._ _ _ _

____“You underestimate Tobio as usual. No surprises here. Look... the one whipped, much more after this than until now, won’t be him. It will be that chick. And I may be slightly envious of her right now, I’ll concede you this. But it’s a necessary step. So I just have to make all this pass, and all in good time, I’ll get the main prize. You just look.”_ _ _ _

_______Oikawa shrugged at Atsumu’s words._  
Again that face he had already seen on the guy: hyper focused, almost scary.  
Miya’s eyes were scary.  
All about him was scary.  
But a part of Oikawa had also a sort of twisted admiration for the guy’s mind and bravery.  
Miya Atsumu had no fears and no hesitations.  
That was remarkable.  
And scary.  
Sinisterly scary. 

____As the dinner ended, the groups at the tables disbanded.  
Oikawa and Miya remained last at their table, and the elder setter asked the younger what plans he had for the longer free evening_ _ _ _

____“I’ll go take a nap real quick, Tooru kun. What about you?”_ _ _ _

____“I guess I’ll put my Discord up and chat a bit with my guys. Take care, Miya chan.”_ _ _ _

_______Miya waved nonchalantly while moving away from Oikawa. A few step into the garden which separated their dining facility from their dormitories, and he realized a tall silhouette walking in his direction._  
A meerkat smile appeared then on his face.  
His usual awesome luck.  
He really was a lucky fella. 

____“Tsukishima kun! What brings you here?”_ _ _ _

____Tsukishima looked surprised. Miya would never talk to him. He had barely acknowledged him in the whole of their lives, and that day instead it seemed like he would purposely trying to chat him up.  
The guy had to be up to something, he could tell, but he couldn’t do anything about it at that point._ _ _ _

____“Miya Atsumu San...”_ _ _ _

____“There there, no need to be formal with me? Want to keep me company?”_ _ _ _

____Tsukishima wanted to refuse, but he had no motives to unless he had to flatly confess to Atsumu he considered him a tedious, scheming, foxy guy. And he had no intention to voice his opinion out._ _ _ _

____“I was just... going this way...”_ _ _ _

____“Oh, camon... come my way then. We’ll walk a little around, and then go take our baths before sleep, won’t we? I don’t like to walk alone. Please?”_ _ _ _

____Atsumu looked defenseless. Harmless. But Tsukishima knew better. Still, he agreed, albeit unwilling, to Miya’s request.  
Surrender had to be easier than not, he calculated._ _ _ _

____“So, Tsukishima kun, what do you think of these days with us?”_ _ _ _

____Harmless question? Was it anything truly harmless about that bleached hair guy?_ _ _ _

____“I think it’s being extremely demanding.”_ _ _ _

____“Only that? Aren’t you having fun?”_ _ _ _

____Tsukishima tched. Another freak with just volleyball in mind... How could it feel fun to have all his muscles tensed, hurting, and burning for hours and hours?_ _ _ _

____“Fun? Well... I don’t look at things that way. I would define these days interesting, more than funny.”_ _ _ _

____Miya looked up to the glasses guy._ _ _ _

____“You’re always very serious Tsukishima kun. Kei kun... can I call you that?”_ _ _ _

____Tsukishima shuddered. His name. His name didn’t sound pleasant in Miya’s voice._ _ _ _

____“I... I’d rather have you call me Tsukishima. Nobody uses my name. I’m not familiar with that. Sorry.”_ _ _ _

____Miya looked like he had accepted the middle blocker’s words, and the two kept walking in silence for a few steps. But then, enlarging his smirk, Miya came back at Tsukishima:_ _ _ _

____“I thought I’ve hard Tobio calling you by name a few times?”_ _ _ _

____Tsukishima couldn’t help a tiny shrieking. The unexpected note from the setter had caught him completely unguarded, till the point his truest reaction couldn’t be stopped from manifesting._ _ _ _

____“Ah... we... well. Maybe. Maybe a couple of times?”_ _ _ _

____The smirk on Miya’s face had gotten as big as a phantom menace. He had Tsukki cornered._ _ _ _

____“I am sure I heard that way more than a couple of times. I thought it was great, coming from Tobio, who’s always so little inclined to others. He must think great of you, Kei kun.”_ _ _ _

____Really. His name in Miya’s voice sounded horrible._ _ _ _

____“Kageyama... is a strange guy. It’s impossible to understand the way he thinks.”_ _ _ _

____“Is that so? Is this what you really think? Not that is any of my business, I know, I know that. It’s just that I am very curious about the reason which has pushed Tobio in feeling so at ease with you, till making him calling you by name. He doesn’t do that with anybody else. Not even Shouyou kun.”_ _ _ _

_______Tsukishima had a huge will to escape from Miya’s claws. That guy was up to something. And he didn’t like any of it._  
But how to run away?  
He had no idea how to slip away from that unwanted chat. 

____“Kageyama has reasons to what he does and what he doesn’t the rest of the world would never get. Even when he explains himself... the rest of us would probably not get much of it.”_ _ _ _

____Miya at that point smiled properly._ _ _ _

____“You seem to know him pretty well. I guess then it’s okay for me to advice you to not step into the infirmary rooms for the next hour or so?”_ _ _ _

____“What? And why should I? I am not injured?”_ _ _ _

_____Not yet, Kei kun. But you are about to..._ _ _ _ _

____“Oh, just a simple advice from my part. You know... there might be surprises round there if you’d peek your head in...”_ _ _ _

____Tsukishima had enough of Miya’s pranks.  
The guy was making no sense at all._ _ _ _

____“I am not getting you either, Miya Atsumu San. Now excuse me, but it’s pretty late and I have to get back to our assigned dormitory. It’s not good if the captain comes later than the rest of the team.”_ _ _ _

____Miya nodded. His face rested, seemingly very quiet._ _ _ _

____“Absolutely. You are right, and you behave like a good captain. I could never be one, I am way too restless and anarchic. You’re good instead. And you’ve also been very good playing these days. We’ve all agreed about it.”_ _ _ _

_______Tsukishima didn’t like the smartass tone Miya was being using while complimenting him. There was a shade of complacency and condescension he intimately distrusted. And more than that, he really wanted to flee away from Miya’s dangerous eyes. He excused himself with Miya and fastened his steps to his assigned building to rush in there and then sleep._  
But the agitation Miya had put him in had played his memory, and he found himself on the wrong path.  
Cruising his way back, he realized how to reach his place he had forcedly to step by the infirmary building.  
A sense of anger mounted into him.  
He had been played by that type all evening long.  
And Tsukishima hated to be made fun of.  
A voice inside him was telling him to just speed up and go sleeping.  
But it had mixed immediately with the one of Miya’s suggesting him to _NOT_ pass by infirmary rooms.  
And like every teenager, even Tsukishima had no choice but give in to the forbidden choice.  
A tickling sense of mystery was getting the best of him.  
The rational part of him downplaying his curiosity as a game, and the emotional part of him wanting to take a look at those rooms just to be able to be smug about it with the irritating Miya the day after.  
He had chosen the wrong person to play mind games with, that Kansai thug. 

____“There’s a light coming out...”_ _ _ _

____Tsukishima hid into the darkness, sliding outside the infirmary building walls, to reach the window from where a little light was giving indication some people were inside._ _ _ _

____“Nobody shall be there by now? Is some of the guys in need of medication?”_ _ _ _

_______He moved slowly and soundless, until he could take a look inside, protected by the foliage of a Japanese maple tree, helping him disguising himself._  
And when his eyes could adjust to the little luminosity of the room, his heart went into sand, and he had to cover his mouth to not yell.  
Then he labored to move away, struggling his hardest to move promptly, while all his limbs were numb and every second was feeling to him like a century lazy in commuting.  
His hand forced on his mouth.  
His eyes, a puddle of pain. 

____When he finally got to rush away, he couldn’t realize someone had monitored all of his actions.  
Someone satisfied enough by the developments of that night to be indifferent to what was happening in that poorly lighted up room into the infirmary building, and ready at that point to go to bed himself, unfazed and delighted by the way, once more, the Goddess of Luck had chosen him to be her favorite human._ _ _ _

____As the people around the building were moving away, the whispering of two voices inside the infirmary room could be decoded by the nocturnal birds who were easy to find in the woods of Shiratorizawa Academy ground._ _ _ _

____A silver howl was looking into the only luminescent room, and to his eyes the scene before them had no meaning, nor significance.  
A young couple was discovering the magic of sexual connection, but for the howl, taught by instinct on how to be good at reproduction, their almost naked bodies could just constitute a temporary distraction in a night of hunting:_ _ _ _

____“Can you say you don't feel this as exciting as a game?”_ _ _ _

____“I…”_ _ _ _

____“You could… but you don't want to?”_ _ _ _

____“This is… also… good…”_ _ _ _

____“Oh…”_ _ _ _

____“… but it’s… different…”_ _ _ _

____Alisa was smiling flirtatiously while keeping kissing the abdomen of a young and toned guy under her, lying on an infirmary bed, her hand pressing after the tongue passage, to make that guy boggle more and more, overpowered by waves of unknown responses his body was constantly giving out after the girl’s actions on him._ _ _ _

____“Say… something…”_ _ _ _

____“I am not good… with words…”_ _ _ _

____“Some times you are…” premised Alisa while surging to get face to face with the mind blown guy who was paralyzed yet very alive below her barely dressed up persona “...and anyway your body…”_ _ _ _

____“My… body…”_ _ _ _

____“It speaks eloquently. Very much so... always…” concluded Alisa, putting allusively the right hand of the guy on her shoulder, to invite him completing in her place the undress of her upper body.  
Despite being clearly the one less experienced, at that point, with a delicate tremor in his hand, the guy grabbed the shoulder strap of the lace bra Alisa was wearing, and moved it away, while the other hand of his circled her torso to snap the bra open:_ _ _ _

____“Does it? And… what do you.., hear…” whispered Kageyama, enticed by the tactile and voluptuous appearance of Alisa’s full chest, as he was surging to dive his face into it. Alisa shivered, and grabbing the head of him to caress it better into her bosom, kissing his hair as black as the night, she breathed in his ear:_ _ _ _

____“It’s not about hearing… it’s all about... feeling…”_ _ _ _

____As the girl crashed mouth to mouth with the guy, her tongue gently forcing lips to open, playfully, sensuously, to intertwine with Kageyama's, she muttered a question which had to sound something like _“Is this less than volleyball, now?”_ at which the guy tried to form a sentence back for explaining how even if volleyball was everything to him, in that moment he could do nothing but surrender to Alisa's overwhelming guidance, because his whole being had been set on fire and nothing was seeming more desirable than let it burn to ashes._ _ _ _

_____Feeling… what is this? I am… blanking… and every feel is rushing down there… what a powerful thing this touch is…_ _ _ _ _

____“Tobio… the way I sense your growth… it makes me drunk with lust…” Alisa was still murmuring as she was skillfully adjusting both of their bodies, completely naked by then, on the bed, never omitting to kiss and lick every inch of the body she worshipped so entirely, to make Kageyama yowl a little for every new vibration his body had learnt that night it was able to produce._ _ _ _

_____Feeling... so my body can also feel like this..._ _ _ _ _

____“I… oh, God… I am shutting down…” blabbed Kageyama inconsistently, as Alisa had managed to make him rock hard in no time. The erotic look of her face, the appetition it was painted with, was incredibly aphrodisiac and Kageyama’s body could not resist an inch to any of the girl motions, nor to any of her longing susurrations._ _ _ _

____“To dominate your body's reaction… to inspire it… having you like this… for me... have you an idea on how long I have waited for this…?”_ _ _ _

____Kageyama wanted to try to point out they mustn’t be in that place. Not at that hour. Not alone. Not naked. But he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t place his thoughts, his priorities, his convictions anymore. All he could do were hard breaths and jolts. And all he could do was infinitely pleasuring._ _ _ _

____“Alisa San…”_ _ _ _

____“You are a follower of your instinct… then now… just surrender to it… take me… you know it’s time to... just follow the way and taste what you want to taste…” and saying that, with an elegant leg lift, Alisa adjusted herself to cover Kageyama’s raging and erected cock, naturally sliding down until she was perfectly sit on him._ _ _ _

____“Holy shit…”_ _ _ _

____“Taste me… you’ll never forget it...” and bending to kissing him deeply, Alisa rocked a bit, sending rushes of electric energy right into Kageyama’s being._ _ _ _

____“Alisa…”_ _ _ _

____“I want you from such a long time Tobio... please... grant the biggest wish I’ve ever had...”_ _ _ _

____At the look of Alisa’s beautifully veiled eyes, those eyes he had loved forthwith, Kageyama gave in and started to follow what his body was suggesting him to do.  
He began to thrust from below into Alisa, causing her to bounce and scream, as the whole of her inner body was being opened up and pressed in a wonderful way and she forgot where they were and where they shall have been instead, giving fully in at the ecstasy of sex, that pleasure that shoots out from the body like an arrow and lets the energy of two people become one in a merge of total freedom which renews both and add to what they are a multiplying factor forever._ _ _ _

_______“I am... so happy now...” cried Alisa at the thundering height of her pleasure, feeling the bliss of Kageyama’s hot release inside her, and shuddering at the sound of his peak of gratification exiting from his mouth like a prayer no priest shall mention._  
She looked at him, panting and rouged, and she thought he was even stunning colored by orgasm. She twinkled, because she thought she had just gotten it with the modern Genji, and her smile embarrassed Kageyama enormously.  
The guy realized what they had just done was against all of what he was supposed to do those days.  
As he tried to rationalize, his face went progressively purple. He put his hands up to cover it, looking lovably childlike, a strict contrast with just minutes before.  
Alisa kissed his hands, trying to reassure him, as she was feeling he was looking out for comfort.  
But after a while, cooling down alongside him, she realized he was mostly confused, rather than apologetic.  
He had been surprised by his body’s reactions, and was trying to understand himself better. 

____“I didn’t know my body could feel like that. It has been... powerful.”_ _ _ _

_______Alisa liked when the guy was attempting to express himself. It was a rare occurrence and she treasured those. She also liked the peculiar way Kageyama had to explain his points of view. He would be seldom poetic and even sophisticated at times, like an awkward philosopher you couldn’t help but fall for._  
Agreeing they had to quickly dress up and reach their assigned rooms, before anybody could detect their missing, they confessed to one another they had a divine time together, though they intended two different things with that confession. Kageyama reinforced the idea he would be happy to meet the girl anytime she’d be up for it, compatibly with his commitments as player. But he also replicate the previous patterns, which asked for no involvement from her part, as he had no involvement he could be able to submit to beside volley. The day Alisa would find no more pleasantry in being with him, she had just to tell him: he would have thanked her for her company and her beauty, and he would have moved on.  
The fact he could have added “happily” easily to that formula made Alisa’s heart break, but she was keeping hoping one day the guy would have changed his mind about it and put her around the same stage as volley. 

____“Don’t worry Tobio. I understand. You don’t have to feel awkward with me because I enjoy everything as much as you do...”_ _ _ _

____“Do you?”_ _ _ _

____Ready to part from him she nodded. She was lying and she knew it, but Kageyama would not understand it, so she could keep putting her front up, again._ _ _ _

____“Yes, I do. Don’t mind anything else. You are my most special boy friend. And I treasure you and this. For what it is. Okay?”_ _ _ _

____Kageyama nodded. He had registered the events of that night as a valuable new information about himself and his body.  
He had liked... no better, he had _loved_ what his body had let him feel that hour or so; he had understood his body had perfectly downloaded all the stress and the tension of those weeks of hectic preparation. His mind, also, had cleared very well. He came back at his dormitory just in time before curfew, feeling great._ _ _ _

____Sex could have been a magnificent anti stress solution, the one solution he didn’t even know he was in need of._ _ _ _

____As Kageyama went into his room, he didn’t notice there was somebody still outside the dormitory building. Someone who was at that point at risk of being discovered and scolded for missing the curfew time._ _ _ _

_______Tsukishima had barely reached the dormitory after his wobbling run from the infirmary, but he had been unable to step into it._  
He was in need of more air, because his internal organs were all still incandescent and he couldn’t drive his nausea out.  
He was lying flat on a little glade aside the dormitory, half on grass, half on the shingle path which was rounding the building he was supposed to be already in.  
Rolling a little to find conscience of himself, he felt his phone vibrating.  
He tried to overlook it, but in fear it would have also started to sound off, he took it from his pocket, realizing the caller was one of those he’d better answer quick: 

____“Tsukki! How’s going? Still alive after two days?”_ _ _ _

_______Tsukishima felt nauseous in answering the phone._  
Kuroo and his bad habit of calling while people could be sleeping.  
But maybe talking... 

____“Kuroo San...”_ _ _ _

____“I hear you very badly. Are you still outside?”_ _ _ _

____Tsukishima had not even conscience of where he had stopped in his escape from the infirmary._ _ _ _

____“I... yes. I was wandering around.”_ _ _ _

____“Ain’t it time to sleep? Hey, wait... There’s someone willing to say hi to you too!”_ _ _ _

____Tsukishima had vertigo. But he couldn’t say it._ _ _ _

____“Tsukki!!! Have you gained a National shirt yet?”_ _ _ _

____“Bokuto... San?”_ _ _ _

____“Hey Hey Hey! Longtime stranger, aren’t you? So, Kuroo has told me you’ve decided to come at our place next year?”_ _ _ _

_______Tsukishima had to sit on ground. He had a conglomeration of spit and hurt in his throat and he couldn’t speak. But he didn’t want to worry his friends, so he tried to dissimulate that as bad line for the call._  
Surprisingly, it worked.  
Things tend to work when people are not interested in them. 

____“Yes. I think I made up my mind.”_ _ _ _

____“That’s amazing!!! I can’t wait to play with you!”_ _ _ _

_____But I won’t play anymore Bokuto San. I won’t. Volleyball... Volleyball is noise. Volleyball is HIM. Volleyball is..._ _ _ _ _

____“Tsukki? Are you there?”_ _ _ _

_______Tsukishima inhaled, trying to not mind the burnt in his eyes, the infinite sadness which had engulfed him whole, and the physical pain he was feeling there on that soiled ground, in a night where the Moon seemed to smile, half face only, but clear, and still all he could see was darkness._  
Eternal oblivion.  
A black pitch of reject and profanity. 

____“I am. Sorry but... the line is just very bad. Catch you tomorrow, guys. See ya.”_ _ _ _

____And he closed the communication, waiting for tears to stream down his face._ _ _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL THE ITALICS IN THIS CHAPTER ARE A MESS** : I am sorry, but the formatting keeps betraying me from my writing into the way it appears here. I waited to be home briefly today in between vacations in hope to being able to fix this mess from my Mac, but nothing good came out of it. I am very sorry, Italics in my writing have a huge meaning as they signal "thoughts" and this way it's hard to get the get going of the story here but I didn't want to wait further in posting this chapter, which is very important so I hope you can understand it anyway.  
> Hopefully next upload won't be as messy.  
> And hopefully you can keep enjoying it ^.^
> 
> **Golden Week (ゴールデンウィーク Gōruden Wīku, Gōruden Uīku)** (or GW) is a week from the 29th of April to early May containing a number of Japanese holidays:  
>  Shōwa Day (昭和の日 Shōwa no Hi), 2007-present  
> May 3  
> Constitution Memorial Day (憲法記念日 Kenpō Kinenbi)  
> May 4  
> Greenery Day (みどりの日 Midori no Hi), 2007-present  
> May 5  
> Children's Day (子供の日 Kodomo no Hi), also known as Boys' Day or the Feast of Banners, traditionally celebrated as Tango no Sekku (端午の節句).  
> Note that "kokumin no kyūjitsu" or "citizen's holiday" is a generic term for any official holiday. May 4 was until 2007 an unnamed but official holiday because of a rule that converts any day between two holidays into a new holiday. May Day is not a public holiday. Instead, Japan has Labour Thanksgiving Day, a holiday with a similar purpose. When a public holiday lands on a Sunday, the next day that is not already a holiday becomes a holiday for that year.
> 
> **NOTE A to F** : every notation comprised in these are events belonging to Okurimono or to its developments, namely to any of the four parts which connects in a Genius Journey series. In particular, remember how in Okurimono Alisa thinks of Kageyama as a modern Genji Monogatari.
> 
> **FIVB Volley League** All notations regarding the calendar and the game of this will be strictly following reality. That's one of the plus about having moved the story ahead of a few years, to match current ones. (P.S.: Italy sucked at that and even LOST to Japan... inconceivable!)
> 
> **NOTE 1** canon occurrence in anime/manga by Furudate.
> 
> **Fuki Hibarida** The National Youth Team Coach, by canon. In my Universe, he has also selected Tsukishima and Hinata by the end of Okurimono, nb.
> 
> **The new players/members of Karasuno** have been highlighted while introducing them, either in this part of the series or others. I detailedly explained in those moments why the names are thought of the way they are. ^.^ Look there for references.
> 
> **The Miyagi area and the Natural disasters occurred there before and after 2011 tsunami** are well registered and stored in many reports. I like to think how the fact people keep making their lives progress despite being so tested by natural and also human disasters is a demonstration of fortitude, tenacity, and yes, invincibility. That's why I loved to put those words from Kageyama to Sakusa in this chapter as an homage to a population made of great men and women.
> 
> **The insertion of valuable medical students in the making of the staffs which will be used during Tokyo 2020 Olympics** is an actual current practice decided by Shinzo Abe's Government. I had to use it in my story. It was just too fitting to let it pass.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my second homage to Volleyball Lord Kageyama Tobio.  
> Please refer to the Series Notes to understand the way the four installments work.  
> English is not my first language so feel also free to correct me along the way, I'd appreciate it :)  
> Enjoy this ride!


End file.
